


For All The Devils Are Here

by Mangacat



Series: Dance with the Devil [2]
Category: Justified
Genre: (like so slow I don't know what to do with these two, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Consent, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Multi, Non-Consensual, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death, The Author Regrets Everything, Unsafe Sex, historical flashbacks, obscure vampire lore, without the author's permission
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:49:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 50,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26665459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangacat/pseuds/Mangacat
Summary: When Boyd lets himself be picked up by a beautiful stranger in a bar, they both have an agenda. He wants her to make him forget, if only for a moment, she wants to make a meal of him.They’re both disappointed.What happens instead sends ripples all the way through Harlan life, through blood and bone of the hills, before washing right up to the feet of a certain US Marshal.//Canon retelling from early-to-mid Season Two before the mine heist to mid-season Three.Updates Saturday, every other week for now. //
Relationships: Ava Crowder & Boyd Crowder, Ava Crowder/Boyd Crowder (minor), Ava Crowder/Boyd Crowder/Raylan Givens (implied), Boyd Crowder/Original Female Character(s), Boyd Crowder/Raylan Givens, Raylan Givens/Winona Hawkins (minor)
Series: Dance with the Devil [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880563
Comments: 85
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t really get into fandom with this show the first time around, except for norgbelulah’s absolutely incomparable ‘Set Fire To This House’-series, which I reread every couple of years, and which some time ago inspired me into doing a re-watch of the show, seeking out more fic in the fandom in the process. I’ve always wanted to write a Justified-fic (using this title, specifically), but didn’t have the courage or the plot to do so. Now, so help me, I finally got both, so off we go on this wild ride (well, truthfully, after about 25k of this was written I hit a wall with a couple of scenes that were just not working until I figured out I needed a prologue, which turned into a 7k oneshot of its own, so... I got a verse. And while you can read this without reading the first one, there's a few things that are set up to better explain some stuff that goes on here, so you probably should *waggles eyebrows*)  
> This story is all plotted out and more than half written, but I'm still beating myself up over posting my first running WIP in, uh... bout fifteen years? I still hope some of y'all will go along with me on the journey from the get go regardless.  
> Thanks a lot as always to my trusty companion silkylustre, alpha-reader extraordinaire and long-suffering comma hunter, who's betaing this story even if it's not her fandom at all. But apparently you can get on with the goings on pretty well, so if your visiting from my other fandom haunts, *waves happily* give it a try. (if you wanna hop on board I include a little Justified Primer playlist in the first chapter). Anyway, this has grown much too long, I'll stop now. Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Justified Primer Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm9CMKWUTXI&list=PLK8WuOtNfxLnddlCoVxq3ftyUrv8hikU2&index=3) (no major spoilers past season one, just a bunch of canon typical violence, i.e. people get shot shot a lot.)
> 
> PSA Triggers: The dub-con tag results from the fact that in this chapter it could be argued Boyd is under the influence during a sexual encounter and consequently does and accepts things he would not ordinarily be amenable to with that kind of partner, though by and large he’s an enthusiastic participant. If you’d rather avoid that scene, you can skip from this (~*~*~) scene divider to the second and not miss anything essential.

The light of the fading sun breaks onto the smooth wood of the bar counter through the deep brown liquid in the glass, painting crystalline shapes onto the grain. It’s how Boyd Crowder measures time these days, before he has to go back down into the black; sitting here at the same counter, on the same bar stool, with a glass of the same whiskey in front of him, made to last, like a damned sundial. He has it down to the seconds, too, except for the days when the memories crowd in too much, too fast and the glass is empty quicker than he means for it to be. Then it’s always the question of whether to get another one. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. But the memories are always there, how his play at being a preacher got more men killed than his play at being an outlaw.  
It’s a damn shame, but it is what it is.

So he sits now, unable to stay still in the house Ava opened graciously to him, even though she didn’t have to, shouldn’t have, probably, and tries to abide by her rules in repayment. Consequently, back to the mine it is, in the evening, where he took the night shift so Ham could switch to early and see his kids once in a while. It didn’t used to bother him, the black, the darkness, not the way it did Raylan when they went down first at nineteen, not even after the collapse, but he doesn’t take so well to it anymore these days, maybe too much life lying between then and now. Doesn’t like to be reminded so much of that time either, that fork in the road for him, for Raylan, that set them onto such different paths, which only ever seem to cross in strife now. Still, it’s the only kind of gainful and lawful employment to be had the county that falls within his skill set. But since most of the time, drowning out the memories also means drinking up his courage, it’s not so bad.

“You sure look like a man thinking deep and meaningful thoughts.”  
The comment is accompanied by a shadow sliding between the window and the glass. Boyd feels the proximity of the body slipping onto the barstool next to him and stifles a sigh. Usually the places right and left of him stay blissfully empty. The regulars know well enough not to bother him and are content with that, while scarce newcomers are warned away by his hunched shoulders and the clear ‘back off’ tilt of his head. However, it’s the deep alto voice of a woman sounding next to him that makes him look up just in time to see her raise one exquisitely manicured finger towards the bartender, nothing else needed for a drink to appear in front of her in seconds.

One point in her favour at least, since the people who get it in their heads to disturb his tattered excuse for peace better do so by drinking away their own money. The second point is that she’s beautiful. Magazine cover glossy black hair, unblemished alabaster skin, full lips and almond eyes. Gorgeous, and she knows it too, in a way that has nothing to do with her looks. He can appreciate that, even if it feels like nothing’s bound to move him lately.  
“My, and here, I pegged you for a chatty one.”  
The answer is quick on his lips, though he doesn’t know yet whether he wants the barb to make her go away or entice her to stay: “Oh, I sure can be. I just reserve it for company I’ve actually invited to keep.”  
He expects her to be offended at the brush-off, the way women of her stature often are when they don’t get the immediate attention and adulation they feel they’re owed. But her laughter ripples through the room instead like wind-chimes in an upcoming storm.

“A man with standards as well as wit, oh, I do like men of your kind. They taste better.”  
“Excuse me?”  
Boyd, who had been in the process of lifting his glass to his lips, does an actual double-take, which has certainly been a rare occurrence in his life so far. The woman next to him just grins mischievously, magnetic blue eyes spelling the interesting kind of trouble, and takes a sip of her own drink before reaching over to offer her hand: “My name is Darlene.”  
He can tell with a glance that that is in fact not her name at all, yet he still takes her cool, smooth fingers and isn’t quite sure what moves him to answer: “Boyd Crowder, Ma’am.”  
Her laughter rings out again – turns heads this time – though those quickly swivel back when they notice who she’s talking to. Normally, that would be the point to make his hackles rise at last, but there’s something in her voice that captures his attention, like a thread twanging in a spider’s web. Or a thready voice whispering in his ear, coming from a place inside of him that has been deep and empty all his life.

“Ma’am. I like that, too. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been a proper Ma’am. But you Southern boys have a way of making it sound all…” she mimes a full body shudder, and suddenly, incongruously, Boyd feels like he’s watching a predator fixing to stalk its prey. A sinking feeling in his stomach tells him to extricate himself from this conversation as quick as possible, all his finely-honed instincts are clamouring for it. But for some reason his body won’t move, except to sway towards her and the closer he gets, the stronger her pull becomes.  
So when she asks him: „Now, Boyd Crowder, why don’t you let me in on those deep and meaningful thoughts?” he doesn’t tip back the rest of his drink and beg off to leave early for his shift at the mine this night. Instead he signals the bartender for another, for both of them, and turns to spin her a pretty tale if she’s so intent on it: “Well, what would you like to know?”

~*~

Next thing Boyd knows, after a blink and a half, is that the evening has crept much further on, bathing the interior of the bar in the mauve tinge of crepuscular light, the reflexion of the dying fire in the west. He can’t quite recall from that moment on, what it was they were talking about, only that they apparently haven’t stopped for quite some time. What he is surprised to find, however, is that he hasn’t felt this unburdened and loose without being considerably closer to black out drunk in a very long while. There’s still that ringing in the back of his head, like he should be recognizing the thread of the story here, the warning, but everything is hazy and comfortable and any such thoughts are swimming so far down his stream of consciousness, he can’t grasp them.

Darlene closes her fingers lightly over his wrist and leans in, captivating his eyes with her magnificent gaze once more.  
“Now, it’s been ages since I’ve had such stimulating conversation with a companion, but what do you say, we go and cap the night with a different kind of treat?”  
“I don’t know if I’ve got the time, Ms. Darlene. Shift change is coming up awful close at my place of employ and taking you to a suitable accommodation for such an undertaking, as well as seeing it through, doesn’t look to be in my time budget right now.”  
“Oh, hush. Now, I ain’t here to be serenaded. I’ve got a mind to tend to my needs in a practical fashion, no frills. I assume you are the proud owner of one of them big cab pick-ups right outside?”  
Boyd gives a dazed nod, kind of thrown by the forward nature of her proposal. He’s used to the women around these parts speaking their mind and not standing on too much ceremony, but he wouldn’t have pegged her for the kind of woman who’d be content with a quick fuck in the darkened corner of a bar parking lot, which for all intents and purposes, she is suggesting.  
“Well, then I say we have everything we need right there, provided you didn’t just park in the most conspicuous spot in the lot.”  
When she tugs at his wrist, her fingers now like bands of steel that brook no argument, he goes.

Following Darlene out of the bar feels a little like he’s watching someone else do it, mind swimming in warmth and the comfortable languor that comes with letting another take charge. It should bother him more, that he lets himself be led around towards the exit, almost like a child – or at least a teenage boy who’s still wet behind the ears and doesn’t know his ass from his elbow yet. But if he’s quite honest with himself, he wants his mind to be quiet for a bit, forget, if only for a few minutes, the burden of lives lost that rests heavy on his shoulders. And if a woman of that calibre wants to make him party to the experience, well, he is happy to let himself be used.

It’s not without thrill either. He’s parked at his customary spot at the outer edge of the parking lot where no one can observe his comings and goings. A couple of loose-leaved branches are swaying between his truck and the entrance of the bar and it isn’t yet the time of the night for it to be as busy as all that after all, the daylight crowd having been there and gone and the nightlife not yet picking up full speed. That time between night and day when the walls between the worlds are thin, as his nana used to say. Still, anyone entering or leaving in the same direction will get a perfectly good idea what they might have going on soon. It’s not a thing he was particularly aware of about himself until now, but the thought of it sends a frisson of heat tugging at his groin. Darlene turns around to smirk at him as if she’s privy to what’s going through his head and she leans against the truck to reel him in and capture his lips with a kiss, deep and sloppy, full of tongue, while he fumbles his keys from his pocket to unlock the car with jittery fingers.

She doesn’t even let him go long enough to get to the passenger side of the car, opting to drag the door open behind her with admirable alacrity and sliding in along the bench seat, tugging him with her into the cab. Her back hits the opposite door and he’s looming over her. He doesn’t feel in control, however, unable to take his eyes off her now, her whisper of encouragement causing a kind of languid high to creep into his limbs mixed in with anticipation. She sets their pace, moving up to kiss him again, expertly prying his lips open with her tongue and mapping out the inside of his mouth until the flesh of his gums tingles. Something about that feeling is familiar, like it should fit inside himself in the place where he normally senses the ragged edge of that aching emptiness. But then her hands get busy with his belt, snapping open the buttons of his fly with practiced ease, before sliding one hand up underneath his shirt and the other down beneath the waistband of his pants and his musings are swept away in the sensation.

He hisses when her cool, firm grip closes around him at the same time as a sharp, stinging pain tugs in the corner of his mouth, the coppery tang of blood there and gone in an instant. It seems to drive her wild and she licks into his mouth with even more fervour, swallows his gasp when her fingers rub callously over the head of his cock. Next thing he knows, his back is pushed into the seat and she is looming over him, knees bracketing his thighs, hips rolling into where her hand is still caressing him, pressing him against her in an overture of what’s to come.

He finds his one hand buried in her hair, twisting the glossy strands in his fingers, while the other travels down her back, rucks up the hem of her skirt to splay across her buttocks. He uses his grip to guide her rolling hips into a rhythm against him. Their movement in the confines of the cab is very limited and the strain on his muscles from being bent into the backrest reminds him uncomfortably of the fact that past forty, he seems to be getting too old for these kinds of shenanigans. But the thought is there and washed away with the friction between their bodies being aided by a thin sheen of sweat now and the pleasure is lighting up his brain. His hand makes it further down, stroking shapes into the sensitive inside of her thigh, making her shudder and then finds her centre, straining against him, wet and unbothered by underwear. Ready for him to slip his fingers right in, which she receives with a low moan, sending a bolt of arousal skittering down his spine in turn.

(~*~*~)

She finally lets go of his kiss-bitten lips to lick her way down his neck, sucking what is sure to become a spectacular hickey into the thin skin over his collarbone. His pulse is thundering in loudly in his ears and he barely has the wherewithal to lift his hips when she rucks down his pants further, hissing at the burning paths her nails leave in their wake. The world slips into focus around that pain for a moment and right back out again when she tugs his hand up from underneath her skirt and lifts it up to slide her tongue from the sensitive web of skin in between his fingers to their tip, sampling a taste of herself. She grins at his groan, his index finger vanishing between her lips and keeps sucking at it while hoisting herself up and over him. It leaves him just enough to time to realize what’s next to mutter: “Wait, we should use pro…” before she cuts in: “Don’t bother, not gonna matter,” and sinks down on him in one slick move, head falling back with a gasp as she grinds her pelvis into his. Any move he might make in response gets stopped in its tracks, one wrist still caught in her surprisingly strong grip, with her other hand clawing into his shoulder, holding him immobile against the backrest, so she can set her own rhythm and just take him along for the ride.

(~*~*~)

Boyd is lost in a haze of sweat, heat and movement, unable to do anything but let himself be swept up in the desires of this woman, who tugs all his strings expertly with every move. They are locked in a savage dance, and no matter how ill-advised, he couldn’t break the cycle now even if he wanted to. Racing towards the peak of sensation, fire is slowly gathering strength in the pit of his belly, embers stoked fiercely with every swivel of her hips. He can do nothing now but hold on, letting it wash over him, higher and higher on a tide of white noise. Suddenly though, there’s a prickle in the back of his head. An uncomfortable sensation, like being watched from a distance, that lights up the oldest, most basic part of his brain, which in turn clamours loudly again about the presence of a higher-order predator.

Before he can make sense of it in any way, a piercing pain slides into the side of his neck. Several needlepoints sink through the skin, down into the vein beneath and his heart, which has already been labouring from the current excitement, abruptly does double time, making him dizzy and sharply focused all at once. The pain turns into an ache, a twisted kind of pleasure, with his body racing to finish, balls drawing up, stomach muscles tightening, while the pitiful remnants of his conscious thought are centred on the place where he can feel a rivulet of thick liquid slide down his skin.  
When that drop is lapped up by a nimble tongue before it can reach the grove of his collarbone, the realization hits him that there’s _teeth_ sunk straight into his jugular, and the tongue is pressing back into the ragged edges of wounds, drawing out his life’s blood in long, even pulls.  
And Boyd Crowder knows in that single moment of terrible clarity, that he is going to _die_.  
Here and now.

Through the haze that descends further with every ticking second, Boyd couldn’t say how much time actually passes. Between her slowly swallowing against his neck and timing the merciless grind of her hips with the ever more faltering beats of his heart, he is caught in a vicious cycle of overstimulation and receding consciousness. He feels her warm up against him while his hands slip from her shoulders, landing strengthless on the cracked vinyl of the seat, as she exchanges his life for her own prolonged existence. Finally, she rears up, carelessly wrenching her teeth out of his neck, though the pain in turn is dull and far away. He does get, however, his first actual look at the creature that’s going to be the death of him, when she inclines her head towards him, tongue licking lasciviously not only at the last drops of blood on her lips, but also her teeth. Sharp, elongated canines and a row of needlepoint incisors that slide back up into her gums when her tongue passes over them.

He should be too far gone to feel that kind of horror, but the confirmation that she is a What and not a Who, exactly, lights up the last vestiges of his mind with a primal terror he can’t even remember feeling when the mortars were coming down around them in the desert. And he was quite sure for a time then, that the next whistle was the last thing he would hear in his life. She catalogues his reaction very diligently, eyes roaming over his face, before she smiles, carefree and rosy-cheeked and swings her leg around, sliding off him to come to rest on the seat next to him with a small sigh. She reaches up to cradle his face in her hand, brushing her thumb over his cheekbone, almost tenderly, turning his face towards her, ignoring his futile effort to twist away from her touch.  
“Hmmm, that was much better than I’d anticipated. I’m almost sorry we won’t be doing it again. But… you know how it is. Girl’s gotta eat.”

She then lets her hand glide down off his cheek, over his chest towards his groin, chuckling when he flinches.  
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m just going to go pack it in again for you, alright?”  
And that’s what she does, tugging him into his pants and going as far as to ruck them back up and doing up his fly with nimble fingers.  
Glancing up, she grins at his wide eyes.  
“What? You’d rather I left you here for whichever poor dumbass to find with your dick hanging out? Now, that’s just undignified. Even I am not that trashy.”  
He wants to answer her with a scathing remark, but he’s too short of breath already, oxygen streaming into his expanding lungs with nowhere to go from there, since there’s not enough blood left in him to take it where it’s needed. It feels like he’s suffocating even though there is nothing obstructing his airways.

“Shhhh, Honey, not long now. Don’t fight it.”  
Her hand is back on the side of his face, stroking his hair lightly, and he doesn’t want to take comfort from it, but the motion is soothing and gives him something to focus on other than the last panicked flutter in his brain. He feels the moment his last breath leaves him, and relaxes into it, finding it in himself to accept the inevitable, hears her go “There, there,” as his vision grows fuzzy and darker around the edges. In those twilight moments, he sees her slip towards the other side of the car, opening the door and stepping out before she staggers and holds herself only half steady between the doorframe and the window. A shudder wracks her and not the kind she was groaning into just a few minutes ago. His eyes stay fixed on her, with what vision remains and a strange feeling starts to radiate from the site of the bite on his neck, creeping from there all along his body. It’s a fiery cold, like liquid nitrogen is being poured into his veins, spreading out into every cell and crevice, lighting him up with exquisite pain. If this is what dying feels like, it sucks.

Something doesn’t seem right, though, because he keeps his eyes on her still and instead of sauntering away into the night, she’s bent over, clutching her chest now, as if his pain is clawing at her all the same. When she half turns back towards him, asking:  
“What, what is happening? What did you DO?”  
He sees that her beautiful face is ashen, no, not only that, it’s flaking, like the life she took from him is poisoning her from the inside and a vindictive little thing at his core tugs his lips into a smile with the final dregs of his strength. Her eyes widen, her face suddenly overtaken by the very same terror she must have seen on his features just moments ago. Bits and pieces of her skin begin to crack and fall off and the last thing he sees before his vision goes is some kind of terrible realization on her face.  
“It can’t be… sleepers are a fucking myth. I can’t…”  
Her final words cut off like a strong gust of wind is ripping them away and Boyd doesn’t even try to make sense of them.  
Instead, he lets himself be dragged under, by the dark, the cold, that burns and burns and burns, and feels familiar and welcome at the same time.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEW CHAPTER (it is Saturday somewhere in the world already right?) I got loads to do this Saturday and lest I forget, posting is early. Fair warning, it's a short chapter too - somehow the chapter breaks, which I'm trying to make as organic as possible - seem to fluctuate between 1.5 and 3.5k. Next one is going to be a bit longer again. Hope you enjoy :).

It doesn’t happen all at once. 

First, Boyd wakes with his full body. 

From the sweet darkness of oblivion back to consciousness in a snap, banging his knee painfully against the steering wheel and straining soundlessly for agonizing seconds until his body remembers breathing. His brain comes down from its full-blown panic a little bit more with every gulp of air he takes. Then he coughs convulsively when some kind of thick dust gets sucked into his airways, leaving an awful, ashy taste in his mouth. He rolls his head back and forth a couple of times wincing at the audible cracks in his neck, but feels his headache receding immediately. His eyes land on the passenger side of the car, noticing at the same time how god awful cold it is inside, because the door is wide open. Something that looks like flakes of ash is swirling slowly in a breeze along the seat. 

And then it all comes back to him, like a flipped switch – long dark hair, mesmerizing eyes, frantic movement and… his hand flies to his neck, fingers scrambling to find – smooth, unbroken skin. He reaches up for the rear-view mirror and angles it towards him, baring his throat. But there is nothing, no gaping wound, no scar or mark, not even a zit on his skin. He stares at himself in the mirror and wonders if he can trust his mind. He clearly remembers leaving the bar with a woman who turned out to be, what exactly? A vampire who ravished him and then _ravished_ him, watching as he died before she up and disappeared in a cloud of smoke?  
He knows the legends about biters and other preternatural things just as well as anyone in these hills, knows well enough there’s truth to it. But once he lays this story out in his own head like that, it sounds like the most ridiculously tall tale anyone’s ever spun. 

Casting around for alternative explanations, he wonders if someone spiked his drink with some hallucinogen. But if so, who and to what end?  
Who would be inclined to take the risk, considering that there is nothing much to gain and who ever would try must realize that if… when he figures it out, he’s going to come after them and there’ll be hell to pay. Boyd shivers again and reaches over to drag the passenger door closed, spying what looks like a bundle of faded rags on the ground next to the car out of the corner of his eye. However, before he can ponder that any more, he realizes that darkness has fallen fully around him and a quick check of the time confirms that he is way past due for his shift. He scrambles to get behind the wheel and peels out of the parking lot in a mad dash.

~*~

His skill set is quite sought after in the mining business, so it wasn’t a great hardship to get himself hired again despite his record, but the foreman doesn’t approve of his past affiliations – be it the Crowder family name, his now disbanded white power Commandos, the born again Christian outdoor commune, he hasn’t been able to puzzle out which. Consequently, the man has been looking for reasons to let him go again from the very beginning. 

He arrives at the mine with a shower of gravel under his tires, throws his car into park and hops out right into the path of Dipple. The foreman has his infernal clipboard in hand, which he stops barely half an inch from thwacking Boyd in the chest, once he sees Boyd’s thunderous expression at the trajectory it’s taking. He might be disapproving, but he’s not stupid.  
“Crowder, you’re late.”  
“I know, Sir. Car trouble on the way here, Sir. Took a minute to fix.”  
Dipple lifts an eyebrow, as if he can’t quite believe Boyd’s used that excuse, but Boyd keeps his expression open and neutral, not giving an inch and without evidence to the contrary, the man has to relent. Before he does though, Boyd jumps in, making sure to infuse his voice with the appropriate amount of deference: “Sorry, Sir,” the army has taught him nothing if not to make his superiors believe they have his respect, whether that’s true or not, “Won’t happen again, Sir.”  
“See that it doesn’t. Now get on down, they’re waiting for you in shaft 22B.”  
“Of course, Sir, I’m right on it.”

Boyd jogs over to the lockers to throw on his overalls and hard-helm real quick and arrives back at the elevator just in time to catch it going down with some machinery. When he arrives downstairs, the heat and sound are suffocating, but with no time to waste, he finds his crew and gets filled in on the extraction plan of the shift. When it’s time to go down the length of the shaft to set the charges, he methodically gathers his tools, the Emulex, blasting caps and makes his way down the dimly lit path to set everything up. Running the fuse cable back up slowly to make sure it doesn’t snag along the way, he returns to his crew, blinking a couple of time to adjust his vision to the brightness of the guiding lights. 

“Hey Boyd, there you are, you alright?”  
“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”  
“Cause your headlamp is off, man, did it cut out while you were down there? How’d you even set everything up?"  
Boyd’s stomach twists up in a knot since he hadn’t even noticed anything different and what’s more worrisome is that he can’t recall whether he even switched it on, on the way down in the elevator. Thankfully, deflection is so ingrained in his demeanour, he hardly has to think through the realization before throwing out: “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Didn’t have no time to check it before I came down on account of being late and it flickered out a few yards back. I guess ambient light was already up enough to get by, I found my way just fine.”  
“Fair enough. Just make sure it works properly once you get done here, you know how OSHA’s been all up our asses on equipment safety and readiness since that spot check a couple of weeks back.  
“I know, I know, I’ll make sure.”

Boyd finds himself a quiet corner to fiddle with his helmet and pretend to be fixing his headlight, which, sure enough, turns on bright and ready as soon as he tries the switch. He feels his pupils contract from the additional light, and blinks fast a few times to shake off the odd feeling. Then he puts the helmet back on with shaky fingers, ignoring the fact that after the spots dancing in front of his eyes have gone, there’s no discernible difference visible to him between now and before, when he was going down the shaft without the light on. He’d been able to see all the way down, clear as day. 

Boyd doesn’t really know how he gets through the rest of his shift, much less the drive home. Instead, he finds himself sitting in the truck out in Ava’s driveway next thing, strangely reluctant to go in. These past couple of months, Ava and him have made a bit of a habit eating breakfast together when he gets back from his shift and before she has to leave for the salon. It’s become a kind of hand-off between them to touch base. Talk about organizing their cohabitation, who will pick up bread or milk, or pop down the store on the way to work because they’re running low on detergent. It’s turned into a strangely companionable time, ever since Ava’s started tolerating his presence in a manner that was more than passive-aggressive. 

Right now though, he can hear her moving around in the bathroom upstairs, doing her morning ablutions, just as well as he can hear the field mouse rustling her way through the grass behind the rear tire of the truck. What’s more, he can hear their hearts beat; Ava’s a slow, calm rhythm and the mouse’s a mad, fluttery dash, as if it was packing a regular number of human years into its short, ephemeral lifespan by just going that much faster. The sound makes him _want_ , long for something he can’t, won’t, name and there’s an ache in his gums, a tension that makes his jaw feel heavy and tight. He finally makes himself move, getting out of the car, when the feeling fades under the sheer weight of his denial and sitting there listening to Ava just gets that much creepier by the minute. He lets himself into the house, takes the silent way up the stairs, mindful of the loose boards and then hurries along to his room just as the shower turns off. 

By the time Ava comes round to his door, knocking with a quiet “Boyd?”, he is burrowed into his bed, back turned towards the door, with the duvet rucked up all the way over his neck so that just the black tufts of his hair standing on end would be visible from the doorway.  
“Boyd, you up?”  
The slow turn of the doorknob rasps incredibly loud in his ears and he barely stifles the urge to cover them with his hands, waiting in utter stillness for Ava to take the hint and leave. She doesn’t press him any further – bless that woman’s perceptiveness – and goes down to eat by herself before she gets ready to leave. He follows her around the house with his senses, wide awake, until the distinctive clap of the car door and the engine turning over break through the silence of the otherwise quiet morning. It’s then that a wave of exhaustion washes over him, as if all his springs were coiled until the lair was clear. He sinks into a deep, motionless sleep, on account of the events transpiring this night having taken everything out of him.


	3. Chapter Three

Second, Boyd wakes up fresh as a daisy, feeling like all the aches and pains he hadn’t even noticed creeping up on him with age have fallen away overnight and are only noticeable now in their absence.   
He’s also ravenously hungry. 

Dashing down the stairs, he’s elated to find Ava has left him a side of fried bacon and a sandwich fixed both for now and as a midnight snack for his break at the mine. He thanks the heavenly father for her generosity as well as her foresight and proceeds to devour the offering. It tastes a bit odd in his mouth: the bacon’s flavour bursting on his tongue akin to an orgiastic experience, while the bread suddenly seems to have the consistency of sawdust, even though it’s quite fresh. It sits heavy in his stomach, but since it quells the burning hunger in his belly for now, he won’t complain. Boyd takes the stairs back up at a run just for the heck of it; expressing the need of his suddenly boundless energy to go somewhere.   
In the bathroom, he goes through the motions, splashing his face with cold water and sticking his toothbrush into his mouth before he even takes the first glance at himself. It’s only when the bristles going across his front teeth snag on something – which feels like biting into ice cream with an exposed tooth neck –, that he stops to take a good look in the mirror. 

Leaning closer, he finds himself looking staggeringly healthy, no trace of the perpetual bags under his eyes that he’s been cultivating these past… oh, several years at least. Still, there’s something odd going on. His eyes have always been mercurial, changing from green to a more hazel hue depending on how the light falls, but now his irises are actually ringed with a thin silvery aura, gossamer threads winding their way outward, reflecting the bathroom light while his pupils are contracting down to pinpricks at the brightness. One wouldn’t be able to tell just from looking at him, it only becomes apparent from a close distance, but it’s disturbing all the same. He spits and rinses his mouth before turning at a slight angle, baring his teeth to the mirror and pushing at his gums slightly with the tip of his index finger. 

Right there, overlaying the roots of his front teeth, he finds a row of slight bumps where the flesh looks raw and irritated. Prodding at them yields the same painful, electric feeling as before and he can’t fathom what could be the cause except for…  
“Huh. Yeah, no.”  
He lets his brain shut down this avenue of thought, since it’ll lead nowhere good and chooses instead to make himself believe that he has witnessed nothing out of the ordinary. As long as he doesn’t acknowledge the change, he won’t have to deal with it. So he finishes puttering around the bathroom instead and gets ready to go to work even though he’ll be a couple of hours early for his shift. He’s going nowhere near a bar in the foreseeable future, but he needs a distraction from the vestiges of last night’s fever dream. So he shaves, dresses and even scrubs his nails before going down to leave the house. 

~*~

His shift at the mine is uneventful this night, except that he meticulously checks his headlight every half hour or so. There’s one incident where he tells Camper – who’s been a terrible gossip all his life and likes to shoot the shit so loudly that Boyd can’t hear himself think sometimes – to shut the hell up and go do his job for once. As he says the words, he feels a tug at the top of his spine, the small hairs in the back of his neck standing on end, and then he’s stunned when Camper actually stops short, turns around and gets on with it for the rest of his shift without uttering one more superfluous word. When he puts his things away after work, he surreptitiously tries to see if Camper is acting normally, but by then, he seems to be back to his old self, laughing with the other guys as he’s getting ready to leave, his eyes glancing off of Boyd like nothing out of the ordinary happened. With no way to know for sure just what he did, if he even did something and isn’t actually losing his mind, Boyd waves goodbye to the rest of his crew and heads to the parking lot to drive home. 

Since he lingered, most of the crew on shift is already gone and the road winding down the mountain is deserted, which suits him just fine. The first rays of sunrise are coming over the hills, coating the leaves of the trees with a golden hue, making it quite an enjoyable drive. He’s halfway home, when it happens:  
A scent, slamming into him without warning, through the vents of the car, rusty, metallic and so utterly pervasive, he can taste it all the way in the back of his mouth.   
It’s so overwhelming, he just about has the wherewithal to steer the truck off the road onto the grassy shoulder and cut the engine before a serious pang of _hunger_ folds him up right down the middle. It’s nothing compared to how he woke up and it feels like he hasn’t had any sustenance in his stomach for ages. Scrambling for the door, he all but falls out of the car, slamming it closed as an afterthought while he goes after the scent in the air like a starved lone wolf, crashing into the underbrush heedless of the branches whipping into his face along the way. 

There’s _prey_ on the other end of that scent, bloodied and ready for him. It’s been time and a half, such a long time since he tasted something real, something alive, so all rational thought is out of the window by the time he reaches the clearing where a deer is trying valiantly to get back on its feet. It’s been hurt, a deep gash in its hindquarters made by something that had the good sense to get out of his way before he reached the clearing. The deer’s eyes are rolling with mortal fear, too injured to get up on all fours and listen to that instinct that tells it to _run_ , but still alive enough to try.   
It doesn’t get the chance. 

Before he can think about what he’s going to do, those bumps turn into needlepoints over his bared teeth, striking skin and the hammering vein underneath. With the deafening shriek of the panicked animal ringing in his ears, blood is pulsing into his mouth, and it’s the damned ambrosia of the gods. Every pull and swallow lights up his body, fire and warmth racing in his veins and he only notices now just how cold he has been since he woke up back in his truck in front of the bar in Cumberland one night ago. The feel of a living, breathing thing bucking in his iron grip while he steals its life is both utterly alien and intimately familiar. The knowledge of the point of no return, where the struggle for life turns on a dime towards a longing for a quicker death hits him unexpectedly and as his body guides the poor creature through its last breaths on instinct, there comes what his mind has been waiting for – remembrance.

~*~*~

_He finds himself looking out over a light downward slope, sitting watch with the flat of a sword blade lying openly across his thighs. Dusk is falling around the camp and down at the edge of the woods, nothing has moved for many hours, whispering a false promise of peace into the air. He knows very well there is an army lying in wait down there, just past the treeline and nothing serves as evidence of their presence more than the continued stillness of the forest. His ears prick uncomfortably at the sudden sound of footsteps. But they hail from behind and are as familiar to him as the dark blue patterns pierced into his skin from the back of his hands all the way up his arms, speaking of his family, his tribe and the mastery of his vocation to everyone with the skill to read them._

_“Not long now.”  
The young man’s voice breaks the silence and he turns to find him crouched on a boulder next to his post, recklessly exposed and already covered in woad, the war paint of their people. Whether it will wash off in water or blood remains to be seen in no more than a few hours’ time, he wagers. The warriors are being mustered to the grove and they have been preparing to do battle for days now.  
“No, not long now.”_

_He can feel the other’s eyes on his face, but refuses to turn away from his watch once more. His companion will speak if he has any more to say or hold his peace. It matters little, for they know each other’s silences just as well as their words. Either way, he is comforted to find the chieftain’s son by his side in this moment. They are close in age and while they travel very different paths in their lives – one having been promised to the shrine since he was barely old enough to walk, the other only coming here to finish his trials before becoming a future leader of their people – they have spent much of the past couple of summers in close proximity. Remembering a childhood friendship formed at the shared celebrations of their clans when they met again, recognizing each other’s marks for the shared history they spoke of, has drawn them together. And he is glad for it now, to have a dear friend, a shield brother, standing by his side to go into battle. The foe they’ll be facing is quite formidable after all.  
For the might of Rome has come to their doors. _

_In his heightened state of awareness, every moving branch has him tensing up, hands clenching white around the hilt of his sword, but still, there is nothing actually moving past the meadow, in the trees.  
“You are not afraid, are you? You don’t have to be, we have fighting men from all the clans coming together to defend the shrine and the gods will surely protect their own.”  
He gives his friend the side eye and shakes his head fondly, well aware that it’s not meant as an insult, but stems from the bravado of a barely blooded youth who is eager to prove his mettle in a real battle.   
“No, I’m not afraid.”  
Just resigned. He fights well enough in a pinch, all druids are taught a modicum of weapon’s play, even if they don’t specialize in smithing. But his trade is in healing and words, the ritual worship of the gods and the runes of providence. _

_He hasn’t fought so many more battles than his eager companion, true, but he has seen many more in the aftermath, for certain. The agonized cries of the wounded, guts and gashes and severed limbs; and the spectre pallor that speaks only of alleviating the suffering with certain herbs to ensure a quicker, lighter death. He is intimately familiar with battle. The one that’s before them now, however, will not be an ordinary one, a failed cattle raid or a feud between clans carried out in the open and bloody.  
No, what is in store for them is oblivion.   
Word has started to spread of these Southern soldiers from beyond the sea, how they fight like no one has ever seen before, taking allegiance or the land in blood. And it is no mistake that the news travels with horrific tales of many groves razed and burnt to the ground, his brethren slaughtered with prejudice. They are the memory of their people after all and it takes a considerably longer amount of time and effort to form a druid than it does to kill them. Therefore, his vigilance is threefold strong. _

_“Do you think they’ll attack at nightfall?”  
He nods gravely: “I would.”  
It’s the only way to circumvent the disadvantage of an upslope attack – make sure the defenders don’t see you coming. And it’s a half moon tonight, not quite as bright as a full one to lose the disguise, but enough to find one’s way if one had been studying the terrain ahead for a few days from between the shelter of the trees.   
“Well then. I’ll stay here, keep watch with you.”  
His friend clambers down on nimble feet from his perch on the rock, sliding along its rough surface so they sit next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, a line of warmth between them.   
And then they wait, for their fate will surely be decided this night. _

_~*~_

_In a blink, it’s pandemonium.  
The attack happens just when night is about to fall fully, in the grey between light and dark, as predicted. And even though a few of the Roman soldiers strike their flints too eagerly, lighting their flaming arrows too soon, the scouting force has advanced so far by then that even the quickly roused warriors have no chance to face down the Romans on a proper field. This battle is ugly and close quartered, fought between the overrun fences and barricades that are supposed to shield the inner sanctum of the shrine. _

_The foe has eschewed their famed battle tactics, the closely held formations that give them the sheer insurmountable advantage on the even field. However, he finds they’re no less effective and deadly in a skirmish, with everyone hacking and hollering their way through a gloriless fight that is nothing but every man trying to hold onto his life by the skin of his teeth. The movements and sounds around him are frenetic - he slashes and stabs his weapon in every direction, barely considering whether it’s friend or foe in his path. There is no time to let himself be led by anything but instinct.  
But then, the atmosphere changes.   
It’s as if there is suddenly a quiet spot on the field, like the eye in a raging storm and his over-sharp eyes and ears tell him that it’s moving towards him. Senses prickling with foreboding, he throws himself out of the way of a gladius that is headed for his torso, only to step into the path of … something. _

_The hand that lands right in the juncture between his neck and shoulder - strong, cold, _other_ \- stops him dead in his tracks. It drags him closer, inexorably, his feet scrambling on the ground that is no more than slippery, bloody mud by now. He tries to swing his weapon against his assailant, but all he hits is air where a body merely slithers out of range like a serpent in water. He has just enough time to register that the creature’s – for this is no mortal man – eyes gleam with innate and unholy silver light, before his whole world explodes in pain. _

_In a moment of incongruous clarity, he remembers seeing a pack of wolves hunt down a stag in his boyhood. He had admired their graceful lethality then, how the pack had cornered the lagging animal until one of them had a chance to go for the jugular. He had tried to learn from nature’s foremost hunters from then on, moulding his own style according to their dynamic. Being on the receiving end of getting your throat ripped out, however, is much less glamorous and certainly a lot more agony. Suspended between life and death as he is, with the creature slurping the blood out of his gaping wounds, he finds sympathy for the stag, and the grace it showed in dying as well. He should be so lucky. But then, his journey to eternal peace is rudely interrupted, when there’s an ululating war cry splitting the air and the blade of a sword cleaves into the creature from behind, slicing deep into the vulnerable spot of the leather and plate armour of a legionnaire right at the juncture between shoulder and neck. Its blood spatters into his skin and exposed flesh like sparks from burning embers. Every other foe would have been dropped by such a blow in an instant, never to get to his feet again.  
Not this one, though.   
He has just enough time to meet familiar, bloodshot hazel eyes, realizing whose hand has dealt the blow, before the creature rears up and turns to attack its would-be slayer, mortal wounds be damned. _

_He doesn’t get to witness any more of that fight, his time of dying upon him in that moment.  
He has contemplated death oftentimes, meeting it in healing, in his studies, in the cycle of the seasons and is not afraid of its embrace. But the way of getting there sure is onerous.   
His veins fill with cold fire, racing along every inch of his body, stealing his last breath before it can finish bubbling crimson on his lips.   
The end doesn’t come after that, however. Instead, it is a beginning.   
The world darkens, then lightens, bright as midday, and he feels the flesh at his throat slither closed over his exposed trachea, a rather unwelcome experience for one resigned to his death. After that, though, strength returns to his limbs, an invigorating rush that takes all the pain and weariness with it. _

_He rolls onto the side when his stomach lurches violently, chucking up a disgusting mess of clotted blood and saliva. The stench around him increases tenfold, the scent of blood and viscera clouding his senses in a way that both repulses and excites him. There is one sound in the cacophony, however, that rings clear in his mind, so immediate that all else falls away. It’s a soon stifled yell of pain, carried in the timbre of a familiar voice. Everything around him, the confounding sights, scents and sounds clamouring for attention from his newly sharpened senses, narrows to that centre and he heaves himself up, lurching in that direction on unsteady feet._

_Once he has the wherewithal to process it, the image burns itself silver bright into his sight: the creature half crouched only a few paces away, having caught the young warrior in the same deadly embrace, heedless of the battle still raging around them, completely focused on the fading struggle against its steely grip. In this moment, he loses all rhyme or reason, letting instinct - bloodlust - guide his body into action. Shaking off all stiffness at once, he closes the distance with only two leaping steps, clenched fist heading for the creature’s back in a blow that has all the strength he can muster behind it. And that is considerably more now than it was before, as becomes readily apparent, when not even the preternaturally strong body of his opponent can withstand the unanticipated attack. His fist connects, and he feels fabric and skin rip, bones shatter from the force of it, both in his hand and under it as he finds it sinking in up to his wrist._

_The creature reacts with a deafening, otherworldly shriek, dropping its quarry and turning to swipe at him viciously with clawed hands. He moves with it, finding himself suddenly a match for its considerable speed and in a fit of pique and quick-wittedness, roots around its chest cavity until he feels a hump of muscle in his slippery fingers. He closes his hand tight and yanks it back out, heedless of bone-edges that rip into the skin of his arm. It’s unimportant pain in the grand scheme of things, when he emerges with the thing’s undead heart sluggishly beating in his grip._

_That, finally, stops the sucker dead, figuratively and literally.  
He watches with an icy cold settling in the pit of his stomach, how the creature’s body keels over, lifeless and still very grotesque, before falling to his knees next to his dearest friend. _

_The young man lies in the mud, chest heaving for breath, but with every movement, more blood pumps out of the grievous wound at his throat and soon there won’t be enough left to sustain a life, he can tell at a glance. Their eyes meet, white with terror both and he wonders for a moment what he looks like now to his friend, before he is awash with grief, a keening cry of loss splitting the air that he can scarcely believe comes from his own throat. He pitches forward to lay his head onto the faltering chest, lost in the knowledge that his friend risked his life to save him, only to die watching him turned into something _other_. _

_Painful sobs wrack his frame, dry, for there is nothing in his body to cry with anymore, as he’s looking down the path of his continued existence as something monstrous. It fills him with dread and the insurmountable longing not to be in this alone. And it’s in this moment that a thought enters into his mind, a notion so entirely irreconcilable with the philosophy of his life and vocation that he should banish it at once. It’s a horrible choice to put on someone and not fair, but as soon as it is in his head, he cannot unthink it.  
He lifts his head, moving up to find his friend’s eyes getting glassy and barely able to focus, skin waxy and pale. But he is encouraged when the young man doesn’t flinch away from his proximity and poses his dreadful question:  
“Do you want to live?”_

_He doesn’t admit that he’s not quite sure that he even has the ability to follow through, given the assent, or if what comes next can even still be described as life. But he needn't have worried. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he sees a surge of hope in the other’s eyes and an iron will not to be done with the world just yet. He takes the half-formed nod for what it is, no time to waste anymore and sits up, urgently pondering the mechanics, now that permission has been granted. He remembers with great clarity the moment the creature was wounded and its blood hitting his own opened flesh, how it burned like cold fire, searing into his whole body from there. He doesn’t know if there is to be some kind of intent or ritual involved, but the mixing of their blood seems as good a chance as any. He notices then the heart still clasped absently in his hand and lifts it half on instinct over the young man’s neck, grip tight enough to watch it ooze what has probably been much of his own life’s blood not so long ago._

_Hitting ripped skin and veins, it sizzles minutely and then there’s nothing. He looks up into eyes that are open, glassy and devoid of any kind of spark, and for a moment he thinks it’s been too late. Desperation drives him to dive for the other’s throat, trying to push the monster’s blood into the wounds to work its otherworldly magic, getting his own first taste that would have wrenched all sense from him, were he not so focused on the task at hand. He holds on by the literal skin of his teeth, staying in control just long enough to feel the flesh beginning to knit back together under his tongue._

_Once he’s done lapping up the last traces of blood from the smooth, unblemished skin underneath, he lifts his eyes with a bated breath, locking with a pair that is wide open, pupils ringed with a touch of silver and full of life._

~*~*~

Raylan wakes with a start, cold sweat covering his upper body where the breeze from the open window makes him shiver. Then he shudders again from head to toe, feeling charged, restless and discomfited, like someone walked over his grave. And considering that it is buckfuck early in the morning, chances are better than nothing that it’s Arlo, just staggering home from a bender at the VFW. 

Winona mumbles, roused by his own rude awakening and turns her head on his shoulder, nuzzling a spot on his neck that feels electric to the touch and like she’s encroaching on someone else’s territory. When he can’t help rolling his shoulder to get away from her ministrations, she lifts her head slightly, fixing him with a calculating look. He can read her thoughts going towards assuming that he has developed reservations about what they’re doing here, wrecking her already dissolving second marriage – which couldn’t be further from the truth, thank you very much.   
“Raylan, are you alright?”  
He considers the state of things for a moment before answering: “I had the weirdest dream just now.”  
Her eyebrows creep up, his response clearly unexpected.   
“Oh?”  
He turns his head slightly, staring into the middle distance as he tries to pull the threads his of his dream into some kind of explanation, while Winona begins to draw patterns on his bare chest with her fingers.

“I was talking to a young man, we were standing watch. The way he looked, I don’t know, it felt ancient? Like some kind of Druid priest, maybe? Tattoos all the way up his arms, but not tribal like they do today, but… _tribal_.”  
Winona hums non-committedly, but turns to prop herself up and look at him with bigger interest as he continues: “We were friends, I think. And there was a battle coming and then we were right in the middle of it, like full on carnage with axes and swords against… soldiers, like legionnaires, or something?” He frowns a little, trying to recall the images that are already slipping in his mind. “We lost sight of each other in the fray, and then… we got killed by a monster.”  
He doesn’t know what keeps him from going into more detail than that, the fact that Winona as a city girl would not put any stock in the legends his people know to be true. Or the strange intimacy of the scene, maybe, the disconcerting feeling of having been _in_ the dream like he can remember it too well and not well enough. Winona’s eyebrows have crept up her forehead and she looks at him for another beat. When it’s clear that he won’t elaborate any further, she pronounces with the driest delivery possible: “My, Raylan,… that is mighty weird indeed.”

Her words are suffused with that deep Southern drawl that makes it impossible for him to tell whether she’s genuinely sympathetic or just taking the piss, a feature he used to find endearing at the beginning of their relationship, when she was the woman who refused to take his bullshit. It became increasingly tiresome when their own marriage was hurtling towards the end, and she started using it as the rapier to make a thousand tiny, invisible cuts, a humiliation that drove him up the wall then. Right now though, her eyes soften and that small, private smile steals onto her lips that eases everything inside him. Her finger is playing very deliberately around his nipple now, sending an entirely different kind of ripple through his body.   
“Want me to make you feel better?”  
He leans into her kiss then, pretending not to feel as genuinely freaked out as he is by what he _didn’t_ tell her he’d seen and let’s her touch wash away the already fading vestiges of the dream instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS. Chapter three, already, like whoa. Also, Raylan makes an appearance for the first time, huh? I have to admit, he'll be a scarce visitor for some time to come (I am NOT kidding with the slow burn, truly, he's been so elusive with his narrative voice in my head for the longest time, but we'll see much more of him in later chapters I promise) And part of the mystery is unravelled in a way that is hopefully both explanatory and puzzling, LOL, can't reveal everything at once, right? Anyway, I know you probably have questions... so hit me up in the comments (though I can't promise I'll answer just yet, ^winks^). I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying going back over the chapters in prep for posting and looking at the story through the eyes of the gorgeous people who've left amazing comments so far. I love you all! (Even the ones that are lurking *g*)


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW... time for another chapter already. I swear the week feels always dragging like molasses in the beginning and then it just flies by like _that_. This chapter might not feel like much, but it sets up some important stuff down the line, so... gulp. One thing I'd like to mention though at this point - since there's no way I can feasibly retell the story of the whole season without making this a gigantomanic project (it's already crashing through every self-estimated wordcount as is) you can assume all untold events of the Justified canon actually happen in the background except if they have been rendered obsolete by or run contrary to the alternate events of this story. I try to pepper in pointers of important off-screen stuff for the couple of readers not familiar with the fandom and reminders for the peeps who haven't been obsessively rewatching to figure out how to do this like me (what have I got myself into!), but I also want to avoid just simply ripping the whole thing, we wanna be more creative than that after all. Anyway, tl;dr, enjoy the new chapter!

Third, Boyd wakes up with the dull, lifeless eye of a very dead doe staring him right in the face. There is no denying anymore precisely what he is, even if he is not quite sure about who. He levers himself up, blinking into the dewy morning light and makes a mental note to keep better track of the sun cycles again from now on. It’s been some time since his latest brush with exposure, but lying in the middle of a clearing, waiting for the morning mist to clear, is a sure-fire way to invite a serious case of sun sickness – which he needs right now like a hole in the head. He prods the deer’s carcass with his foot, pondering for a moment what to do with it before he decides to leave it for nature to bury the evidence. After all, whatever had tried to bring it down in the first place was likely still hungry and only deterred by his presence. Right now, he needs to get out of here, back to civilisation, showers and oh, floss. Floss is a readily available thing now, thank the Lord, what a marvellous invention. 

Boyd returns to the truck, dizzy with the cognitive dissonance of having to keep his very human life up to date and the slowly returning recollection of a much longer, much more storied one straight in his head. Right now, however, nothing serves him better, but to be Boyd Crowder, the person who knows his way around this time and this holler and more importantly, can operate a car (another one of those amazing new-fangled inventions). So he pushes the memories down and away for the moment, concentrating completely on the now and drives home. 

The sun has fully risen by the time he gets back to Ava’s and he shields his eyes on the way to the porch, since even the delicate early morning rays feel incredibly bright and uncomfortable. A whiff of tobacco smoke is the only warning he gets before it becomes apparent that the calm, steady heartbeat he’d been subconsciously listening to from about a quarter mile down the road isn’t coming from inside the house.  
“Good morning, Boyd.”  
Her tone is level and neutral, no indication what kind of tongue lashing she might have in store for him. But then, life in these hills has long since taught Ava to keep her thoughts from showing on her face if she doesn’t want them to be there. So he greets her just like he would any other day, stepping into the shade of the porch and letting his vowels lengthen and sing in the way that usually makes her smile.  
“Why, Ava, and a fine one it is indeed.”  
Today, she just ashes her cigarette before putting it back between her lips, watching him follow her movement with his eyes. Ava lets the tension stretch out between them, silently exhaling smoke that tickles in his nose something fierce now and rakes her sharp gaze all over him. 

He holds himself very still, keeping his hands from going up to check his face for remnants of his earlier activities. He’d checked himself in the rear-view mirror in passing to make sure he wasn’t the kind of mess an enterprising sheriff might take upon himself to ask questions about, should they happen to cross paths. And his customary dark clothing hides stray droplets of blood readily enough for the undiscerning observer, but there is little that escapes Ava’s scrutiny once she sets her mind on it. When she doesn’t run screaming after a couple more long beats, he guesses he’s in the clear, which is of course the moment she strikes:  
“You snuck in and pretended to be asleep when I called on you yesterday morning. And today you don’t even show up until more than an hour past the usual time, without leaving so much as a note or sending a text. Do you know what that makes me think?”

He meets her eyes head on and wonders whether he shouldn’t reach for that place in the back of his head that made Camper shut up and leave him alone during his shift. Finally, he decides to rely on his human talent for evasion and let her tip her hand first before he does something rash. Consequently, he leans in a little, hands clasped behind his back and prompts: “Why, Ava, I cannot see inside your head, so there’s no way for me to know what might be occupying your mind.”  
She shoots him a look that conveys her eye-roll at his unnecessary wordiness without moving any other muscles, but answers: “I think that means something is brewing and you don’t want me to find out. You know I will and you know the rules – no crimes as long as you’re under my roof or you get gone.”  
“Ava, I assure you, nothing criminal was on my mind when I came home and went straight to bed yesterday morn. I was just feeling a little under the weather. As for the business that held me up on my way here today, I’ll have to claim a bit of privacy and not elaborate any further, but I swear to you on my mother’s grave, it had nothing whatsoever to do with my previous life as an outlaw.”  
At least not the one she knows about. 

He works consciously to keep any sort of _persuasion_ out of his voice. It’s coming back to him fast now he’s considered it, but on second thought, he finds that he doesn’t want that for his relationship with Ava. He’s bent the truth with subterfuge and omission successfully enough all his life and that has served him well most times. But bending the minds of people to his will with more than words is a different thing altogether. He’ll use it on people he doesn’t care about readily enough, unwilling to discard any tools in his now considerably larger box of tricks, but not people like Ava.  
She looks at him like she wants to prod because his explanation is obviously evasive bullshit, but also like she can’t quite figure out in what way. Still, she must see something in his expression that satisfies her anyway, because she chooses then to stub out her cigarette and shoo him inside with a flick of her chin.  
“Will you at least sit down with me now? You look like you haven’t eaten properly in days.”

More like centuries, is what he doesn’t say, but Boyd leads the way to the kitchen all the same. Usually, he can’t get at Ava’s bacon and eggs fast enough, if she’s offering, so the easiest way to restore her peace of mind is to sit down and have a meal. He begs off the eggs and biscuits with gravy she kept warming in the oven, claiming an unsettled stomach still, but makes a good showing on the bacon. It’s sadly much overcooked for the way his tastes run now, and he profoundly wishes he could have brushed his teeth beforehand, being sorely reminded of why you don’t go snacking on furry things if you don’t want your next meal to contain unnecessary fibre. But they eat in companionable silence until Ava has to leave for her shift at the Cut ‘n Curl. 

Boyd goes to sleep and dreams of a hunt in the rolling hills of his homeland, both of them really, so eerily similar even with many centuries and thousands of miles between them. The silent stalk, the single-minded rush towards prey makes him wake up with a mouth full of sharp teeth he has to will back into his gums. He knows there’s quite the treasure trove of memories still to recover and he’s glad it’s not hitting him all at once. With nothing else to do for now, he goes out to work his regular shift, keeping things as ordinary as possible. Bits and pieces continue coming back to him while he’s awake too, but it’s more like muscle memory – realizing he can understand the two Croatian cousins working on his crew when they talk amongst themselves or that he knows how to fence with a rapier.  
But there’s nothing so overwhelming and visceral as that first remembrance. 

He doesn’t hunt, despite the dreams, reluctant to go after humans, both due to the risk of exposure and strangely appalled by the thought. Trust him to be the guy turning into a vampire, who doesn’t have qualms about killing people for their actions (possibly their character too, admittedly), but gets squeamish at the thought of eating them. Still, the deer’s blood will tide him over for another day at least, so that’s future Boyd’s problem for the time being. He also makes a point to be up when Ava’s around, touch base with her in the mornings and afternoons, appreciating the time with her in a new way, like he’s relearning her from a different perspective. He notices her looking at him quizzically from time to time, as if she’s not given up on trying to figure him out, but it’s less with suspicion and more curiosity. It increases his affection for her all the more, he’s surprised to find – for that clever girl that got buried so long under the rubble of her life and is only now starting to clear the way for herself. 

Meanwhile, his past is becoming vaster by the minute, and even if he doesn’t have all the puzzle pieces yet, snatches of memory from different places and ages drifting through, there is one constant: a presence he’s missing at his side with a hollow pang, much like a change in temperature sometimes aches beneath the starburst scar where Raylan’s bullet punched a hole in his chest. And he certainly plans to put a name to that person, both of them really, at the earliest possible opportunity. But for the world, for the time being; he’s Boyd Crowder and nothing more. 

And with that daily life come all the nuisances Boyd has had to deal with, personified at the end of his current shift by Kyle, who approaches him again about his heist plan. He is torn between brushing him off on account of Ava putting her foot down concerning crime, and hearing the man out at least as a courtesy for dragging him alongside his speeding truck for several hundred yards in a fit of projected road rage. When Kyle dangles the prospect of not only making a lot of money but coming out of it the hero in the eyes of everyone else, he thinks about the letters from the bank he’s seen stuffed into the junk drawer in the kitchen, arriving in increasingly lurid envelopes and of the tears he can smell on the paper now. He thinks about territory and the need to establish a safe space for him and his, something he can only ensure with the aid of influence – and that means money. Kentucky is his home now, and his rule book the laws of the hills. Possibly, it’s time to play for bigger stakes now.  
So he makes a decision with a simple answer: “I’m interested.”


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter, little bit later than you've been getting used to (cause I've secretly been posting them late Fridays, as to not get sidetracked like I was today, but I had something to do yesterday night.) Another chapter on the shorter side, BUT at least it's got more Raylan (I was surprised myself, here I was, think he was gonna hide away for another chapter, see what I know?) and it starts with a flashback, whooo, exciting.

_”Are you even going to hear me out?”_

_“I don’t see why. We’ve had this argument many different ways many times now and you have always lost. ‘We’ll get where we're going faster if I can trot next to the horse.’ – as if we didn’t have all the time in the world to get where we’re going. ‘It’s just fair to switch off once in a while, I feel ridiculous always being the one riding’ – like I care if your precious feelings get inconvenienced, I’d much rather…” He opens his mouth, gesturing wildly down from the saddle, but his companion just walks on at a dignified pace, talking over him with no regard for what he might have to say. “… you accept that, then deal with the trouble that will find us because after all this time, you still refuse to understand why it is essential to keep up the right appearances. I cannot mime the pauper monk, riding high on a horse while a knight walks at my feet.”  
His horse snorts, shaking its head into the reins as if to concur. He brings it back in line with a firm press of his thighs, whispering ‘traitor’ at it under his breath, well aware that the other man is smiling, secretly pleased in the knowledge that he’s won._

_He isn’t ready to give up yet though. One of these days he will come up with an argument at least worth debating for more than half a minute. Today is maybe not that day, but… He lets the horse drift closer, swaying with the trot until he can lean over to the other man: “Maybe I’m just a knight offering his mount in deference to a travel weary clergyman, doing penance for my sins through humble deeds.”  
His companion turns to look up at him with an incredulous expression, as if he can’t quite believe what he heard: “Well, aren’t you clever. And not that it makes any difference to the argument, but what kind of sin would _you _have to confess?”  
He sits up again and pretends to think for a minute, then swings his leg over the horse’s withers and slides out of the saddle. Then he snags the other man’s hand to brush his thumb along faint traces of the dark blue woad tattoos that the change had sunk deep into his skin, healed to near invisibility many years ago. It is the next step of a familiar dance, the very reason they still have this argument at all._

_“Come now, you are no more a pious monk than I am a proper, honourable knight, and, knowing his true servants’ sermons, the God of Christ would not take kindly to it. Why are you always so keen to keep up appearances if you know as well as I do there’s no other soul around for miles? Besides, our sins are our own, and their redemption is ours even so. I do not need a foreign god to tell me that.”  
His companion looks down at their clasped hands and then back up again.  
“Maybe I need the moral certitude of faith, any kind, to tide me through these centuries without losing myself.”_

_He sighs deeply.  
This is another argument they’ve been having many times over and again, one he will not settle in his favour, any time soon at least. The groves it’s worn into their hearts are much deeper than the light steps of their previous banter. He has always been fine with what he’s become, the life they’ve lived together from that fateful moment of battle onwards. But, fraught as it might have been and spoken with his dying breath, at least it had been _his _choice. The same cannot be said for his friend, who’s always had the deeper, more philosophical mind, that inquisitive spirit that needed to figure out the purpose behind life’s ineffability. If that is his mood right now, any more arguing, even in jest, will only result in a headache for himself. So he cuts into the pattern, pretending to relent:  
“Alright, if you insist on the slow way, that will do for now. How about we take a rest here and add to the tally of a different kind of sin?”  
There is no reason after all, to let go of his ulterior motive after all. He brings the scarred knuckles to his lips for a brief moment, waggling his eyebrows suggestively and leaning in…_  
…before startling with a full body flail when his centre of gravity tips unexpectedly. 

Raylan tries to blink the fog of sleep away alongside the images from another strange dream as he quickly adjusts his balance to keep the chair from toppling over, glaring fiercely from underneath his hat when he realizes Tim’s foot is pushing against the edge of his seat.  
His fellow Marshall is grinning impishly: “You look like you were having a mighty fine dream there.”  
And before his brain has woken up enough to sort out what’s what, his big mouth is already open to defend himself: “I was riding a _horse_!”  
There’s a beat of silence and it’s all he can do to keep a straight face and the blush under the back of his collar, watching Gutterson’s eyes widen as he serves him up what will probably be the most hilarious office story for a month. He thinks he even heard a snicker from behind Rachel’s desk.   
Tim, of course, adds insult to injury by muttering under his breath ‘That’s what she said’ before throwing a thumb over his shoulder towards the glass partition: “Art wants to see you,… Cowboy.”

Raylan grumbles under his breath and makes a show of adjusting his hat to give himself time to put what he actually dreamed about in a box at the very back of his mind. He’s going to examine that one… probably never. That seems like a sound plan.   
He knocks on Art’s door and walks in when the Chief gets up with a file in his hand.   
“Now, Raylan, do I have to give you a stern talking to about falling asleep on the job?”  
“I was taking my lunch hour.”  
Only, he can’t remember being tired enough to fall asleep at his desk, not that he hasn’t before. It’s not as uncommon as Art makes it sound in his teasing for Marshalls to kip out in the office from time to time, with the irregular hours they sometimes keep. But this morning, he was just working on a simple trace when some overhanging fatigue must have dragged him under fast. 

Art just hums in response with that particular cadence of his that can mean anything and nothing and hands Raylan the file.   
“Just got a call from Tom Bergen down in Harlan, who faxed this over real quick for you to take a look at. Looks like Walt McCready has been faithfully cashing his benefit checks…”  
Raylan takes a look through the contents of the folder with a much sharper focus, just a couple of sheets of paper, but he sees it right away.  
“Yeah, those signatures look off to me, no question.”  
It still rankles that he had to leave Loretta staying with Mags Bennet for the time being, without having a strong enough cause for social services to remove her, even though he’s sure by now that something stinks. More likely someone.   
“Somebody should go down, make sure it is actually Walt reaping the benefits of those checks, even if he might be sending the money down for Loretta from ‘out of town’.”  
“And since you’re newly refreshed from your ‘lunch’ I’m of a mind to send my most resourceful Deputy down to Harlan to beat around some of the bushes, see what might fall out.”  
He exchanges a knowing look with Art, before tipping his hat and striding out of the office to do just that.


	6. Chapter Six

Boyd wakes with a smile on his face. Though the memory that’s come back is already faded by the sleep between dream and waking, he savours it all the same. He takes comfort in the knowledge that apparently, after the violent experience of turning, they’d stuck together, the connection of their friendship enduring in their new shadow-life. What is new, of course, is evidence of the other kind of feelings that he’s not ready to examine quite closely yet. He has certainly looked, once or twice, and acknowledged that to himself, but his human life has been spent in these hills, the army or in prison, none of those an environment in which a man might indulge in such attractions safely. There was one moment, more than twenty years ago, in which he might have come close to acting on something he didn’t have a name for back then. That moment fled before the reality of separation, though. It never had the chance to reveal itself one way or the other and he has never felt the same way since. 

Putting the thought aside for now, Boyd makes his way down to the kitchen to find a note from Ava on the fridge promising a proper meal tonight before he has to leave for his shift and he had better wait up for her. He checks the time as he pulls the blinds around the kitchen and living room to find he’s woken up rather early. He decides to repay Ava for the meal by taking care of some chores that need doing around the house. The remembrance has left him with a curious craving for company, so he’s looking forward to spending time with her. However, it also calls to the forefront the question of sustenance. While Ava’s famous fried chicken might taste just as well as it ever has and not do him any harm, it will also not exactly satisfy his hunger. He’ll have to feed soon, no two ways about it. There’s still a bit of time for him to figure out that conundrum, but he needs to think about a long distance plan, and soon. 

Boyd is just taking out the trash, shielding his eyes from the thankfully half hidden sun, when he hears a car approach up the road. He knows it’s not likely to be Ava as soon as he can separate the pitter-patter into three distinct heartbeats a quarter mile out. Boyd stays in the shade of the porch, waiting for the car to pull into the driveway and realizes with distaste that it’s Kyle and his wannabe crime gang, come calling uninvited and inconvenient.   
“Hey there, Boyd!” Kyle hollers when he bounds up to him, either oblivious or wilfully ignorant of the glare Boyd levels at him in response. “Nice digs you got here.”  
“These are not _my digs_. This my sister-in-law’s home, which she has graciously opened to me. And I find myself wondering just what is that brings you here, fellas.”

The three men have slunk up on the porch by now, boxing Boyd in. Not that he doesn’t have the ability to rid himself of them one way or another if they chose to make trouble, but of course, they don’t know that. Still, their invasion of his personal space has his hackles up.  
“Well, to discuss the plan of course. You said you were interested, so let’s get this show on the road.”  
Boyd keeps himself from curling his lips into a snarl, but barely. He quickly dismisses the idea of _persuading_ them to leave right now. One or two might be manageable, but three would be stretching it either way and even if he was fully confident he could keep them in check and send them on their way with a strong enough suggestion to keep them gone, he’d be ravenous by the time Ava got home with no chance to see to his needs in the meantime.   
Better to invite them in and let them talk themselves out fast, to make sure they’ll be gone way before then. 

“Hey, what’s with the lockdown you got round here? Afraid the deer are gonna peak in on you?” one of the goons – Marcus? – asks with a leer.   
Boyd pins him with a stern glance and deadpans: “Sun allergy.”  
“What? What kinda pansy ass…”  
“Can’t choose your afflictions, now, can you? Why do you think I take the night shift, for the fun of it?”  
It pays better actually, and these three know that as much as the next man. This is part of the hyper-masculine song and dance he’s come to find endlessly tiring, especially when the third guy, Pruitt or something, adds with one hand slinging over his friends shoulder: “Nah, Marcus, that’s how he keeps his ass nice and pasty so everyone knows who’s boss.”  
It’s said with a tone of voice that swings between derision and envious resentment and Boyd just looks at Kyle with his eyebrows slowly creeping up his forehead. He doesn’t care whether it’s supposed to be a dig against his past affiliations or his masculinity, both entirely unaffected by this douchebag’s opinion, thank you very much. But their immature behaviour doesn’t inspire confidence in their abilities of pulling a major heist on a mining company and Kyle knows it, small favours, by the way he’s calling on them to shut their mouths and settle down. 

The plan, when he finally lays it out, is equal parts simple and hare-brained enough that it just might work with a crew he trusts to display a basic level of criminal competence, which is decidedly not the case with this bunch. And then Kyle arrives at the fact that they’re counting in killing the foreman and pinning the whole thing on him as a failed inside job. That seals it for Boyd. He has to get these guys off his back and out of this house, soured towards the whole undertaking even before he smells something rotten, like stale fear, on Kyle when he tells him that part, the uneven rhythm of his heart in that moment betraying a lie or at least an omission. Kyle is definitely not acting in good faith, and though the scheme might be something to put in the back of his head and dust off if he ever needs to plan a proper score with a trusted crew, this has all the makings of a tragedy and it’s high time he exits stage left. 

Just when he’s re-examining the idea of whether he can scrape together enough to juice after all to _persuade_ them to leave and forget they even considered him for this plan, the key snags in the front door and heralds of Ava coming to home early to make that dinner. They don’t seem to have noticed, too wired to be aware enough of their surroundings – case in point for not even attempting this – and Boyd needs to get them to leave _now_.  
“That’s it, gentlemen. I’m glad we had this conversation now, to clear up any open questions…”  
“So you’re in?”  
He looks Kyle square in the eye and tells him with a considerable _push_ :  
“I’m afraid, _this is where we part ways._ I might not be opposed to a bit of property damage, sticking it to the man. But I’m not going to be party to outright killing a man who has done nothing to deserve it.”

He sees Kyle twitching where he sits, with the clear impulse to get up and get out, Pruitt actually springing to his feet and going on the prowl along the far wall, but it’s not enough. These men are too focused on what they’re here to do to let themselves be steered away from their goal without a major effort. And Boyd finds that, apparently, this requires more than muscle memory and he’s out of practice. And out of time. Before he can say anything more, Ava walks into the living room, having dropped of the groceries in the kitchen.   
“Boyd, did you read my…oh…?”  
She starts at the sight of the unexpected visitors, her eyes jumping to Boyd’s with instant weariness.  
“You didn’t tell me we might be having company. I would have brought more.”

Boyd stands slowly, hands placating as he tries to convey to Ava that she should stay on her guard without alerting the other men.   
“Indeed. I was as surprised as you are to find these fine gentlemen visiting on our doorstep and, since it has become quite clear that this is not the moment for further discussions, I’m sure they wouldn’t want to impose on your hospitality any longer. You were just leaving, ain’t that right, Kyle?”  
He gives it one more _push_ , already feeling his reserves stretch thin – and for a second, Kyle looks like he’ll take it, pack up and make himself another day’s problem. The moment hangs in the balance, tension tightening around them, before it tips when Pruitt, the thrice-damned moron, pipes up for the corner he’d slunk into: “What were you gonna make?”  
Which in turn prompts Kyle to lever himself up from the couch and right into Ava’s space, who stands her ground and holds his eyes with growing disdain showing on her face. 

“Yes, let’s hear it, Miss…”, he looks expectantly at Boyd, though they both know he can very well infer who it is standing next to him. The tension hangs between them, until Boyd grinds out “Ava.” with loathing curdling in his gut.   
“... Miss Ava. What were you going to make?”  
Ava presses her lips into a thin line, staring Kyle down, waiting for him to get the message that she won’t play ball. He doesn’t back down though, leaning closer to her instead.   
“Come on, don’t be shy. I’ve heard the meals you serve in this house are very delicious, incredibly lethal or both. So I’m curious. What would you have served us, if you had the chance?”

Boyd feels his vision tilt when Kyle takes his hand out from behind his back, holding a pistol which he in turn presses insistently against Ava’s belly.   
“Now, it’s an innocuous question, isn’t it? And if you won’t answer me, I might have to assume that you’re not here to cook at all, but to listen in on things that are supposed to be none of your business.”  
Boyd silently curses himself for not keeping track of all the guns in the room automatically, even though it’s no surprise Kyle had a piece concealed. He really is growing dangerously soft,… but there’s still a chance he can talk his way out of this without revealing his ace in the hole.   
“Kyle, you know as well as I do that Ava heard nothing. That in fact, there was nothing to hear anyway, because like I told you, we wouldn’t be coming to an arrangement. I have no objections to you trying your hand at your plan elsewise so long as you keep me out of it. But this is the last we’ll speak of it before we all forget we were ever here in the first place. Now, kindly take yourself and your associates out of this house, or…”

Kyle, who is apparently blessed with the measure of survival instinct god has given a gnat, lifts his other hand into Ava’s hair instead, letting it glide through his fingers for a moment before he lays them against her neck, thumb resting right in the hollow of her throat, where it would be a child’s play for him to press hard in the wrong place and crush her larynx. He locks eyes with Boyd, the kind of challenge that tells Boyd they’ve nearly reached the end of that particular rope.   
“…or what?”  
He switches his gaze to Ava for a long moment, helplessly calling on her forgiveness for what he’ll be doing next, seeing her eyes widen when she realizes he is about to make a move.   
“… or I might forget myself.”

Kyle laughs: “Ha, I’d like to see you move faster than I can shoot you.” And swings his gun hand towards Boyd, which is last mistake he makes in this whole foolish undertaking.   
The world turns into a strange, disorienting blur, reminding him that it has been quite a while since he has moved this quickly and his senses are still very much tuned to the limited input a fully human brain gets to process. However, letting the aeon old hunting instincts take over his body and let loose the predator feels like shaking off bonds. Like he has spent these past few days with one arm and one leg tied together at his back, always off balance and hobbled for it. Breaking out of the confines of a human body, that perception feels … glorious, exhilarating, addictive. 

In a fraction of a second, he’s on Kyle, breaking the wrist of his gun hand before he can even so much as move on the trigger and then breaking his neck with a satisfying crunch. He watches Kyle’s body sink to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut and has just enough time to look into Ava’s fear-blown eyes when a deafening report followed by a one-two punch in his upper chest makes him stagger back. Ava gasps out: “Boyd, oh my God, no…” as he puts his fingers onto one of the spots that sting and huffs a small “Huh” when he finds them coming away wet. The smell of cordite reeks, sharp and piercing in his nose, and he looks up over the barrel of a revolver to find Marcus staring back at him with abject horror written all over his face. 

“Son, you really shouldn’t have done that.”  
He smells the blood now, distinct and acute, hears the thundering heartbeat in Ava’s breast, her distress cloying and heavy in the air.   
“See, for Kyle here, well, his presumption towards Ava just made me mad.”  
He turns his bloodstained fingers out towards Marcus and Pruitt, a mockery made of a gesture of benediction he has bestowed on many earnestly, but that just serves to seal the fate of the two men standing in front of him, arrested in the power of his gaze now that their gang leader is out of the picture.   
“Now this? This shit right here makes me _hungry_.”  
It’s easy then, to let the red mist descent, body uncoiling like a spring when he moves across the room before Marcus can blink, let alone fire again, his fangs sinking into the thin, unprotected flesh at his throat with a force that opens his windpipe, reducing the panicked scream to a simple gurgle. The warmth and coppery taste of human blood bursts into his mouth, heady and oh so sweetly familiar from a long way away. 

He only half notices his hand reflexively closing around the throat of the last man standing, absently feels a hand scrabble against his inexorably steely grip, while the deep gulps of blood he’s drawing out of the other one throw him back in a sudden flash to the last time he did this. _The smell of cannon fire hangs heavy in the air over a battlefield, wounded and dying soldiers lying screaming on the blood stained ground, the scent drives him wild with the hunger of many nights spent disciplined and starving in a camp. And finally, the battle over, no idea who won, but seizing the opportunity to quench his thirst unnoticed among the chaos, the heaving neck of a dying man in his grip, locking eyes with the familiar cherished hazel that have been his one constant over centuries, sharing this meal as they’re often wont to do. They’re drawing their fill as they are lost in each other until the burning starts, deep in his belly, the soldier’s lifeblood turning to ash in his mouth, his suddenly rising fear reflected in those hazel eyes,_ and Boyd wrenches his teeth out with a panicked gasp, the phantom sensation of the curse taking hold and reducing his body to flecks of dust rooted deep in his mind at once. 

He is slow to come back to himself with the first and last taste of human blood battering down his senses and the realization of just how many years lie between one and the other. What brings him back is the sound of panicked breathing, sobs desperately stifled against the palm of a hand and he turns around slowly, licking his teeth up into his gums to become aware that there’s only one person left alive in this house and she is terrified beyond all measure.   
“Ava.”  
The stab of pain underneath his breastbone is unexpected in its severity, and he lets Pruitt’s body fall from his slack hand, breath choked out of him to the point that it no longer matters how he lands. Ava’s breath in turn continues to heave behind the feeble cover of her hand, even though her eyes meet his clear and defiant, a woman bred with the true strength of these hills.   
“Ava, no, please…”  
He is across the room in three long steps, nothing of his preternatural speed, but still, when he reaches out to touch her, to reassure her in any way he can, she flinches bodily. Not away, not even taking a single step back, this beautiful, strong creature who clearly thinks her fate is sealed and still doesn’t back down. 

They stand at that impasse for a long moment, her, refusing to move; him, too terrified of her reaction to go through with his need to touch her, to reassure himself that she is unharmed. She finally lowers her hands from her face and asks in that abrasive, impatient tone of hers:  
“What are you waiting for?”  
“I…”   
Lost for words he follows her eyes flitting from one dead body to the next, and he can almost taste her question of how she’ll end up, choking him in the back of his throat.   
“I see what you are, and I don’t imagine you’re done. So if you’re going to rip my throat out, would you be so kind to do it quickly?”

The pronouncement makes the bottom fall out of his stomach and he feels his knees buckle, too weak to hold his weight, falling down at her feet and from the way her mouth falls open in a moue of surprise that is the last thing she expects.  
“Ava, please, I… I would never…”, he reaches up with shaking fingers to clasp her hands, marvels when she lets him delicately draw them towards him, bowing over her hands to lay his forehead against the back of her fingers with the lightest touch, like he’s asking for a blessing.   
“This… this was all… I couldn’t let them hurt you.”  
He draws back a little, lifting his eyes to her face and finds her looking back at him incredulously and he knows, he _knows_ this is his only chance and the window is closing fast.   
“Ava, there are so few people left I care deeply about and I couldn’t just stand to watch him threaten you like that, I couldn’t lose you, please, you have to believe me.”

Her fingers twitch lightly in his and suddenly he knows she is considering him, looking past the horror she just witnessed and actually _looking_. He tries to leave it all open on his face for her to see, the way he’s come to enjoy their companionship these past months, the ebb and flow of their lives together in this house having been the most peaceful time Boyd Crowder has known since the time of his childhood when his mama was still alive. How the shelter she has provided against her better judgement has given him the chance to at least start on healing the wound cut into him from losing all the men he’d wanted to lead and counsel onto the right path, even though he hadn’t even noticed it at the time. She takes one of her hands out of his, and, with fingers trembling ever so slightly, reaches out to brush her thumb over his forehead, tracing along the furrows a hard life has etched into his skin.   
“You really mean that, don’t you?”  
“Everything. To keep you from harm.”  
“Huh.”  
He watches her press her lips into a thoughtful frown, so close to a decision.  
“Then what…”

He wants to answer her, spill everything he has learned about himself and his strange journey these past few days, suddenly craving for a confidant to share the experience with. But before he can react, a sensation lights up everything in him, startling him to his feet. He ignores Ava’s inquiry “Boyd, what is…” in favour of staring over her shoulder towards the front entrance of the house eyes unable to see but feeling it all the same. A single heartbeat, coming closer down the winding road, a rhythm as familiar to him as his own reflexion, stirring something inside him he can’t even begin to name.   
“Boyd, what is it?”

He falls out of his reverie into her questioning eyes and for a moment, loses the thread.   
Only when her expression turns anxious and she makes a move to slip her hand out of his, does he shake off the stupor.   
“He’s coming here.”  
As soon as he says it, it becomes real and crashing down on him that he can’t, he _can’t_ , not right now. He turns his full attention back to Ava, now desperate to make her understand.   
“Ava, I… I need you to listen to me, _please_ ”, and it’s a push, but also a plea, so she won’t be under any obligation but to consider his words more carefully. “We don’t have much time and I need your help. I need you to go out there, and give him whatever he wants, just make sure he doesn’t come in here looking for me.”  
“I… who’s coming, Boyd?”

“Raylan.”  
And he knows she must be able to hear the car now too, tires swerving on the gravel driveway. But there’s no way for her – or him – to know more with ordinary human senses.   
“Raylan? How do you even…?”  
“Ava, please,… I know and I cannot…” He takes her gently by the shoulders and is gratified that this time, she doesn’t flinch.   
“You have two choices now, alright? And I will accept either one you choose. Now, you can go out there, meet our dear Marshall and decide that after whatever business he has is concluded, that you’d rather not return into this house so long as I am here and it is safer for you to leave with him. Now if that is the option you take, I will let you leave, I will make sure this place is spotless of mine and any other presence than your own and by the time you return after a day, I will be gone from your life and you will never have to see me again.”

The sound is loud in his ears now and he doesn’t even remember whether his own heart beats still, but if it does, it is in tune with the one fast approaching over the distinctive clap of a car door.   
“However, if you can find it in yourself to trust that I could never pose a threat to you in any way, then you’ll make sure he leaves on his own and I will be here to explain everything to you after, I promise.”  
He leans in close then, well aware of their time running out as familiar steps approach the veranda.   
“Now, you might be tempted to look for a third option, maybe to take your chances and see him take me in. Never mind that our altercations in this house tend to end with bullets flying, which you know is not going to stop me this time, just as prison walls are not going to hold me, even if I let myself be caught. But I don’t know if I _can_ right now, much as I’d want to defer to your wishes. And I _do not_ want to hurt him, you hear me?”  
Ava looks at him with eyes shocked wide and he casts around for anything more to say, when there is a knock on the screen door out front and a voice calling: “Anybody home?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psych! Oh my, after a couple of built up chapters, this feels so packed with stuff. This encounter with Kyle and the gang was one of the first scenes I ever put together for this fic and yet, when I got to it, it was suddenly so difficult to write, because it had been marinating in my brain so long, I couldn't write fast enough to get it on the page. But in the end, I enjoyed it very much. Anyway, in other news, I might have to put in a small break of a week off posting since we're going into lockdown again which had been hell on my writing discipline the first time around and I am reworking some threads in the upcoming chapters that weren't working right and I only just figured out why. I always want to stay ahead with new content in the posting pace so I always have a comfortable puffer. BUT no worries, there will definitely be a chapter next week and likely the week after. I'm just emotionally preparing myself and you, my dear readers. Stay sane!


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NGL... this week... was hard. New Lockdown which shut down my place of work, again, covid at the office (not me thankfully but it did NOT help to have half of staff in quarantine while trying to batten down the hatches), the election that's going to affect the whole world even though there's basically nothing we on the outside could do to affect it. Mind-numbing anxiety barely touched by any feeble attempt at self-care. So my writing time was very limited. BUT, good news is among all the chaos, I figured out some more of the things that weren't working as they should and HOW TO FIX THEM. So, that was a great relief, now I just have to deal with the mind-blowing edits that entails. But it's all good. Shorter chapter this week again, but I think you'll like it. I do like it a lot.

After knocking and calling out to the inside of the house, Raylan takes a step back on the landing of the stairs leading up to the front door, mindful of Ava’s tendency to greet unannounced visitors with the business end of a shotgun. He waits a couple of beats to see if something moves inside the house. Just when he gets antsy enough to contemplate whether to knock once more or slink around the back to take a look from there, the screen door opens and Ava steps out. When she sees him on her stoop, there’s an almost imperceptible hitch in her step, and her startled: “Raylan, what are you doing here?” sounds off somehow, as if she is surprised to see him, but not.  
“Ava, how are you?”  
She quickly closes the door behind her and steps toward him to lean against the porch rail across from where he stands, still keeping her high ground.  
“I’m fine, thanks.”

Something about the way she holds herself sends a tingle down his spine, his lawman’s brain cataloguing things his conscious mind isn’t ready to sort out yet. But it sure is sounding all the bells and whistles. In that same moment, a look flits across her face, like she’s in the process of making a decision about something: the hard set of her jaw revealing teeth clenched with anxiety – a tell he knows all too well. His hand falls from the railing to his holster without conscious thought and he leans his weight back to ground his centre, a move her quick eyes don’t miss.  
“Ava, are you sure you’re alright?”

She opens her mouth to answer and then instead silently fumbles a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket first, before replying: “Of course I am.”  
“Yeah?”  
She puts a cigarette between her lips and lights it, lifting an eyebrow at his tone, accompanied by a half nod.  
“Cause your hands are shaking.”  
He dips his head a little to the side to be able to catch her eye from underneath the brim of his hat and she meets it with a defiant stare.  
“So? The salon was full all day and I haven’t had a smoke in hours.”

He wants to call bullshit on her recalcitrant evasion, instincts still clamouring at him and when her eyes flit quickly towards the front door and back, he feels his fingers tighten on the grip of his gun.  
“Ava…”  
“Raylan,” it comes out forcefully now and he keeps his focus completely on her. Watching her blow a breath of smoke into the crisp afternoon air out of the corner of her mouth and brush a lock of her gorgeous blonde hair behind her ear, suddenly struck by the image. It reminds him of when it was his hand that got to do that for her, before she told him to keep out of her business and that they were finished.  
“…what have I told you about riding into my life on a white horse whenever it suits you? I said I’m fine and I am. Take my word for it.”

He almost opens his fool mouth to tell her he’s going to stop trying to protect her when she stops needing protecting; which is never as far as he’s concerned, especially as long as she makes it a point to live her life in these hills. But he bites his tongue in the last second, trying not to disrespect her that way. Somehow, it’s like she can read his thoughts on his face anyway and she snorts in resigned exasperation, flicking ash from her cigarette and looking out into the yard in deep thought. When she turns back to look at him, he sees her forehead smooth out, shoulders settle minutely and whatever it is that had troubled her mind when she came out to see him, it looks like she’s made a decision now. 

“What brings you here, Raylan?”  
He badly wants to ask again, what it was she decided, but he knows from painful experience, that if she doesn’t want to share it with him, she won’t. So he settles on trying for the issue that actually brought him to her door.  
“I was hoping to talk to Boyd about something.”  
“No,” she shakes her head with another drag from her cigarette. “He’s not feeling well right now and I just got him to lie down and get some rest. I’m not going to let you disturb him now.”  
Raylan reaches up and lifts his hat, smoothing his hair back with one hand before settling it again, desperately tries to make it look casual instead of the gesture of agitation it is. He contemplates for a moment forcing his way into the house to call Boyd out regardless, but Ava would likely have his nuts if he tried to get around her like that. No, he’s not taking that chance.  
“Not too serious I hope?”  
“Nothing a good meal and some restful sleep won’t cure. And you can call, you know? No need to show up in person every time you want to ask him something.”

Raylan looks at her with his eyebrows raised, incredulous that she’d suggest such a thing. Boyd is a slippery son of a gun at the best of times – when you got him pinned down and know him well enough to be able to read all the things he says that don’t come out of his mouth. Never mind the circles he’s able to talk around people on the phone.  
“I was hoping for a lead I could follow up immediately,” and then it dawns on him that maybe, Ava might be able to help as well. “I’m looking into a case of check fraud, forged signatures on social security benefits. Helen told me that time was, folks who had a mind to make use of such an opportunity, they’d turn to Bowman.”

Now it’s her turn to look stunned by the unexpected mention of her very much not dearly departed husband. Then she frowns with her teeth worrying her lip.  
“Raylan, I’d like to help you, but Bowman… he didn’t do business here at the house. At least not in my earshot if he could help it. But even then, I can’t imagine he had the patience or the skills for such… delicate work.”  
There’s a light buzzing sound and Ava automatically reaches into her coat, taking out her phone to glance down on it, before she dismisses the text and casually slides it back into her pocket.  
“No, I don’t imagine he would either. But is it possible he – facilitated a contact between interested parties? That there could be someone he was in regular contact with who’d do the work for him?”  
“I… I guess, it’s possible. But I wouldn’t…” she hesitates suddenly, and Raylan refrains from prodding any further, since she clearly just had a thought. 

“Actually, there might be… I never made the connection until now, but there was this one guy, Winston Baines, he used to come by once or twice a month, pick up a pack of papers or drop something off. He’d leave them with me in an envelope a couple of times when Bowman wasn’t home. I never looked too closely at it,” that she avoided doing so to keep from catching unnecessary grief at the wrong end of Bowman’s frayed temper goes unsaid, ”but might be that it was something like that. Baines has a small workshop up near Cumberland, ATV rental I think? And he did, what do you call it… calligraphy? For a couple psalm drapes for church. He might have the skills for it.”  
“Huh,” Raylan answers, thinking it over. “That actually sounds like a good lead. Thanks Ava.”  
“Sure. Anything to help you make sure the good citizens of Harlan County abide by the law.”  
Her tone suggests that she regards his inquiry as a waste of time and undue hassle on those good citizens, since everyone here has some kind of small time hustle like that going for them one way or another. They have to, to make a living with what’s afforded to them by these hills, and it is negligible in the bigger picture. But there’s a small smile tugged in the corner of her mouth also saying she doesn’t mind helping him out so much. 

“Now, I believe you have somewhere to be, follow up that lead of yours then?”  
He takes it as the friendly dismissal it is, when she stubs out her cigarette and flicks it into the yard. And he does have to chase down that Baines character as soon as possible if he wants to catch a break that might make Walt McCready’s case official. Either way, there’s a cell phone for Loretta in his glove compartment that he certainly means to get to her on the way home.  
“That I do.”  
He tips his hat to Ava and starts walking down the stairs towards his car. On a whim, he stops at the bottom and turns one last time, catching Ava at the door.  
“You know, Ava. You can call too, right? You ever need to.”  
She throws a glance at him over her shoulder and says nothing in reply for a long moment.  
Then she nods and says: “Yeah, Raylan, I do.”

Something that’s felt awkward and crooked between them ever since they went their separate ways finally settles into place. Raylan takes one more deep breath as he watches her slip inside, before turning around to walk down the driveway and get in the car. And just when he’s opened the door, he realizes that besides Boyd’s beat up truck and her sedan, there’s another vehicle in the driveway, one he doesn’t know. He looks back up again, but the door’s closed now and there’s no more sounds coming from inside the house. There’s no good reason for him to go back up, and find out what’s going on with that truck, which could be sitting in her drive for any number of perfectly innocent reasons. With a pressing lead in his pocket that he needs to get to, he makes himself trust Ava’s judgement and let it lie. Consequently, he only takes a quick shot of the truck’s plates with his phone while he starts the car and turns around to go figure out just what Winston Baines is up to.


	8. Chapter Eight

TW in this chapter: brief description of an anxiety attack (~*~*~) if that’s your poison, skip between the dividers (~*~*~)

Ava hears the door click shut behind her with a quiet snick and takes a deep breath. Her mind is made up, but at the same time, that noise carries with it a special kind of finality. It rouses the small part of her that’s still wondering if she’s making a mistake, the last of her life potentially.   
Well, there’s nothing to be done now but owning her choice, so she straightens her shoulders and walks back into the living room where Boyd stands right where she’d left him in to go answer the door. He hardly appears to have moved at all, except for flipping shut the cell phone in his hand that he slips into the pocket of his vest as if nothing out of the ordinary is going on. She leans against the doorjamb, reluctant to step fully into the room, as if the non-existent barrier between one space and the next has any kind of bearing on whether he can reach her.   
“I think you owe me that explanation now.”

Boyd meets her eyes head on, opens his mouth as if to answer and can’t seem to find anything to say; it truly is the age of signs and wonders come upon this earth. He sinks down onto the couch raking his hands through his hair to make it stick up even more than usual and she realizes in this moment that she’s not going to get the answers she wants if she doesn’t ask the questions first. She knows what the big ones are and they’re burning, but there’s the small ones too and maybe starting there will ease them into it.   
“You were listening in?”  
She doesn’t mean for it to come out as accusatory as it does, but apparently the notion of Boyd standing here with thirty feet and three walls between him and the words spoken on the porch and still being able to hear them clearly enough to break in on the conversation – it’s just disconcerting enough to slip it past her conscious choice of words. 

He turns his head sharply and starts: “Yes, but Ava, you have to bel…”  
She cuts him off with a raised hand, just wanting all the facts on the table for the moment, and none of the emotional baggage, so she makes her voice go calm and detached with her next question.  
“And how did you know?” At his raised eyebrow, she elaborates: “That it was Raylan coming. You knew. When the car couldn’t even have been in the driveway yet. How did you know?”  
His jaw works for a moment, as if he’s weighing how to word his answer, or whether to answer at all, but she doesn’t let him off the hook, keeps their eyes locked with the unmistakable message that he better lay everything on the table as promised, or else.   
“I… his heartbeat.”  
That… is not what she expected. “You heard his heart beat from half a mile up the road and could tell it was him?”  
He smiles at her, crooked and a little too sharp. “Yes, Ava. You see, the heart, for all that it’s shaped similarly in many creatures and labours to fulfil the same task, fast or slow – if you know what to listen for, its individual beat and rhythm is rather like a fingerprint. So, people I’ve _heard_ before, that I’ve taken special care to listen to,… I can pick them out at range, out of a crowd of a hundred; it doesn’t matter, it’s a bit like a radio channel you tune into.”

She lets that sit for a moment. It boggles her mind, as a concept. The execution…. Not so much.   
“And of course you’d be tuned to Raylan Givens… You dug coal together.”   
She mutters it half under her breath, but of course he’s perfectly capable of understanding her now and nods along until she sees a thought form behind a frown on his forehead, like it just occurred to him that something isn’t quite right about that. It’s more confusion than deception, which leads her to file it away uncommented, focusing on the big picture again for the moment. Big questions it is then.

“So… What are you?”   
He looks startled at her pivot, but unbalanced is how she wants him right now, so it’s more likely he’ll actually tell it true. His reply, however, is predictably circumspect. He does like to make people work for it after all. Still, it’s one more step towards making her believe that man… being sitting in front of her is actually Boyd Crowder. A realization that’s oddly more comforting than she would have thought.   
“Now, Ava, you know the answer to that already. There’s plenty of lore known to anyone growing up round here and you know as well as I that a lot of what is out there is not just legend, but fact. The logical conclusion is as good a descriptor as any.”  
“So, a…” it is a logical conclusion, isn’t it, but somehow the word is still stuck in her throat.  
“…Vampire. You can say it. A Biter. Bloodsucker, sanguivore, revenant. Though I’m not quite sure one can consider us returned from the dead, it’s not quite clear to me whether I actually died in the process. Some might call it… differently alive.” He lifts his eyebrows as he expects her to argue terminology on the subject of being a… a creature of the night. 

“Huh.”   
Sighing to herself, Ava realizes that there’s no way she can continue this conversation sober. It’s one thing to grow up with the stories about what most folk consider myths and legends and have it drilled into you at a young age that some of those stories are more true than others. It’s quite another to witness something that is as extraordinary as it is improbable in the heat of the moment and then to discuss it with such nonchalant practicality. Hence, she goes over to the commode where they keep the good stuff in a little glass-fronted cupboard, takes out the bourbon and fills two glasses with a couple of generous fingers. Crossing over to the couch, she notices that there’s an empty space where three bodies lay just minutes ago. He must have moved after all when she was outside with Raylan, and she wonders for a moment what happened to them, before deciding to _very much not think about that right now_. She sits down in the recliner opposite from him instead. It’s only when she offers him the second glass and he reaches for it that it occurs to her: “Oh sorry, can you even…?”

A small grin stretches his lips when he takes the glass gingerly from her, clearly aware of her slightly shaky fingers.  
“Oh yes, don’t worry. It’s not going to do much for me apart from the taste,” he looks into the glass as if the brown liquid could give her all the answers in his stead and then nips a little, before lifting the glass back at her in a salute, “but the gesture is appreciated nonetheless.”  
They lapse into silence again and this little exchange with its utter normalcy helps Ava find her footing a little bit, while she tries to process. It’s not like she has any reason to doubt his claim, having seen the evidence in the stark reality of the last half hour, but still, it’s… a lot. 

Yet, the only way through is forward it seems, one step at a time, and so she takes a drink from her own glass and asks: “How long?”  
Boyd’s eyes flick to her and then to the side again, as if he’s seeing something far away.   
“Already done with the questions that have easy answers, are we?”  
She frowns, not quite following what he means, but he only rolls his own glass between his hands a couple of times before going on.   
“As a young man, at the… beginning of my life. I was apprenticed to be a man of God,” he gives her a crooked smile then, as if they’re sharing a bit of a private joke, “Not the God you’d find in the Bible and churches nowadays, he hadn’t quite yet made a name for himself at the time.” 

Boyd takes a small sip again before continuing while she tries to wrap her head around the implication.  
“I was prepared to see my life play out as a man ever learning, keeping our rituals and customs and memories alive, healing the ailing where I could, advising the leaders of our people. And I would have been happy to spend the rest of my days like that. But days of war far outnumbered days of peace at that time and at some point, the formidable foe that had come to our shores ravaging all the tribal lands laid claim to my grove as well. We didn’t eschew battle then, and thought we were well prepared to defend our holy places just as our pastures and villages but,… what no one realized then is that it wasn’t the soldiers – expertly trained in warfare as they were and experienced conquerors – that posed the greatest threat. It was the enemy they brought among their ranks that we didn’t even know to fear.”

There’s a pain in his voice that is worn white as old scars.   
She doesn’t say anything, letting him sit with his thoughts for a moment, finding herself strangely taken in by the tale.   
“It… He… came for me. On the battlefield. Through all the chaos and mayhem and all the men trying to end the lives of their fellows a bit quicker just to gain another second for themselves – he came right at me. It… something like it had happened before, in other battles, some even won, but all the wise men dead thereafter and the essence of their tribes gone with them,” he takes a shuddering breath, “That was to be my fate as well, but instead, when the creature had me in its claws, it got dealt a blow that would have killed any mortal man. It ended up turning me by chance.”  
Ava feels herself leaning into another pensive silence, and this time her curiosity is too great: “And then what happened?”  
“The man who attacked it, trying in vain to save my life,… he didn’t stand a chance against what was coming for him in return. But it bought me just enough time to wake, remade and ravenous, to exact my revenge. I killed my sire, right there on the battlefield, over the body of my dearest friend, and then I went on, trying to forge myself a new existence.”

Ava sinks against the backrest of the chair and tips back her drink in one go, setting it down on her knee and taps her finger restlessly against the empty glass, considering him, mulling over what she’s heard. And as she rolls it around in her head, a light goes off with startling clarity. This is Boyd Crowder she’s talking to after all.   
“Well, that is quite a story. But you haven’t answered my question after all. How long? I mean you say there’s soldiers and tribal lands and I reckon at some point we had battles in these parts…”  
He smiles at her again, that private one between them, when she manages to catch one of his manoeuvres, which she’s become quite adept at over the course of their conversations. The warmth of familiarity sinks heavy and reassuring into her belly. 

“Ah, yes, these parts. But, dear as it is, here is not the homeland I was talking about. The soldiers coming were Romans, intent on taking a new province for their empire, to be named Britannia.”  
Ava hadn’t noticed how she continued to tip her fingernail against the rim of the glass until she freezes and the noise of the last clink echoes in the silence of the living room. The Roman Empire. Britannia, Britain, before it was… well Great Britain. Christianity not being widespread yet, that means…  
Boyd breaks the moment by tipping back his drink and leaning forward to delicately set his glass on the table, eyes never wavering from her face, and he doesn’t miss a single leap her thoughts make.   
“Yes, Ava. I am _old_.”  
There’s power in that pronouncement, an undeniable certainty, and she believes him, God help her, she does. She’s also caught in his gaze, notices his pupils are ringed with electric silver, his skin suddenly appears pale, – shimmering, almost translucent and unyielding like polished marble – and for the first time, since this all started, apart from speed and bullets and teeth and blood, he looks truly _other_ to her. 

(~*~*~)

Her heart starts pounding a frantic pace, something inside her almost as old as he is clamouring that she’s _prey_ and had better run. And she doesn’t know what to do with that because she’s done running, got done when she served Bowman his last meal and she’s not going to start again now. Still, her body works against her, the glass rattling terribly against the table top where she sets it down before she throws it at him. And she’s not afraid, not on the right side of her mind, but instinct, oh that shit is buried deep and now air is in short supply; she’s taking rapid breaths, but somehow they don’t go where they’re meant to and she doesn’t know how to make them. 

“Ava. Ava, please, can you hear me? Ava, baby, come on, don’t…”  
Everything is hazy and indistinct around her, as if there’s a bubble of… something, between her and the world, and she can’t get through and she can’t calm down. The pounding is loud now, her heart thudding against her ribs like it wants to beat out of her chest. Pressure mounting in her ears, like it sometimes gets when the weather changes, and she feels it at the base of her skull, cold sweat rising on her skin, sending a chill through her body and…

(~*~*~)

“Ava, _stop_.”  
Everything goes crystalline then, jarringly clear from one second to the next.   
“Please, please, I promise, you’ll never…”  
She sucks in a new breath that finally inflates her lungs all the way and he’s right there, dropped on his knees in front of her, gripping both her hands in his like they’re delicate china, her knuckles pressed against his forehead as he rocks gently.  
“…have anything to fear from me…”  
And his skin against hers is warm, which feels strange, like it shouldn’t be; she’d expect him to be cold, one step removed from humanity inwards as well as outwards, but he’s warm, alive and begging.  
“… you’re all that’s left of my family, please, Ava, I can’t…”  
And in this moment, she knows – all isn’t said and done yet, there’s so much more she needs to know – but one thing she’s terribly certain about. She draws her hands back slightly and he lets go at once, arms sinking. She keeps him from withdrawing by taking his face in her hands, palms scraping against the stubble on his jaw, brushing her thumb across his cheekbone as she lifts his head to meet his eyes, so green and frightened and lost, and the last vestige of her earlier distress is gone the moment she says:  
“I believe you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok tbh, I was going to announce a posting break this week, but on prepping this chapter for posting, I realized that in light of what's coming next, that would be a dumb place to do that. However, that means while next week there will be a new chapter, the week after will definitely be a recess, cause we'll be coming up on a chapter I'm heavily editing right now (I figured it all out, it's just a matter of putting it together now) because I'd rather give you a great chapter than one that's merely punctual. As always, I so appreciate you guys, everyone who's reading and kudo-ing and commenting, you are such bright spots in my day.


	9. Chapter Nine

“I believe you.”  
Ava’s words clang through him like a bell, and everything around them holds its breath for a moment.   
Boyd feels the warmth of her fingers press against his cheek and doesn’t dare open his eyes for fear that she’ll change her mind again, make him go, when he’s just realized that he can’t leave, or he’ll become unmoored with no connection left to humanity and that can’t end well.   
“It’s alright, it’s alright, don’t worry, you’re alright…” he hears Ava mutter, and chokes because she’s not supposed to be the one comforting him, when he frightened her, brought her so much heartache. 

He lays his hands lightly over hers, leaning into her touch to feel the pulse in her fingertips on his skin, and he knows her heart now, from fast and hard and frantic to calmer and slower and steady, all the little trips and bumps through a single beat that are uniquely hers. Knows it like he can’t figure out how he knew Raylan’s, when he’d never heard him like that before, but that’s a question for another time. Right now, he’s all tuned to Ava, and how her heart will never again fear or falter, if he has anything to say about it. He slowly opens his eyes to find her filling up his sight, expression open and inquisitive, and the words slip out before he even knows they’re there in the first place.   
“I love you.”

That draws a quiet, startled laugh out of her, turning into a small smile that is equal parts fond and exasperated, and instead of an answer she tugs him closer until he can feel the light press of her lips on his forehead.   
“Oh boy, what am I going to do with you?”  
He tries to retreat, embarrassed from the untimely and inappropriate declaration, for of course there’s no way she can return the sentiment, not now, not with what he is. And for all that Boyd Crowder was – is – in love with Ava, he is more than that man now, and with that comes another soul burrowed so long and deep, he doesn’t know what to do with the unexpected tangle of feelings that grows roots inside of him, spreading like a thicket around his heart. Ava doesn’t let him go though, sliding her hands down to his shoulders to keep him from slipping away.

“No, no, it’s alright, I didn’t mean to…”  
“Ava, I’m s…”  
“No”, she cuts him off categorically, “I shouldn’t have… I should have handled this better. There’s nothing wrong with…”  
“I don’t think anyone could have handled this situation with any more…”  
They’re talking over each other and fall silent at the same time, staring, lost for words, until Boyd feels compelled to say: “Well, this isn’t awkward at all.”

Which in turn causes Ava to break out into infectious laughter, sweeping him along with her after a moment, the tension breaking on their commiserating fit of chuckles, until she slides down from the seat of the recliner to plop right in front of him, holding her stomach from the hysterics. He lets Ava drag him around until they’re both leaning against the recliner next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. Her hand comes up over his chest, to bury her fingers in the wild hair behind his ear, rubbing small, soothing circles into the skin there, as they calm down slowly, the pulse from her wrist a steady, staccato beat under his jaw. He lets his head sink against her shoulder, amazed that she doesn’t flinch away at all, just continues to pet him lazily as he takes in her scent – something citrus-fresh, spicy – and they both stare up at the ceiling, studying the faint pattern of water spots and the occasional dusty spider web as if they hold the answers to the nature of the universe. 

After a few moments of strangely companionable silence, Ava hums pensively and then asks:  
“So,… what’s the rest of the story then?”  
“Hmm..?” Boyd counters, not quite sure what she is aiming for with her question.  
“Well, see, I just had a thought. On the one hand, you claim you’re an antique… person, and you’ve been around for … a long time, and according to legend… it stands to reason that you wouldn’t age, ain’t that right? But on the other hand, I remember the first time I saw you, at the church potluck, carrying your mama’s famed casserole, Bowman trailing you, jabbering away. You were what? Twelve, thirteen at the most? And I know for a fact that since then you’ve done about ten inches of growing and put on at least 50 pounds, and that wild hair of yours turned into a lot more and somewhat less between then and now, which means you did in fact age. How’s that possible? And don’t tell me you’re… moulting. Or something. That’s not a kind of weirdness I could deal with, I don’t think.”

Boyd lifts his head and turns to stare at her with his mouth hanging open and wonders how anyone could miss this bright, perceptive girl buried inside a beautiful, tough, hill-smart woman.   
“I… remarkable as that would be as a concept,… that is not the case. But you’re right, you’ve known me as I aged from boy to man because I was as human then as you are now.”  
She lets her hand slide out of his hair to prop her shoulder against the seat, facing him fully with her raised eyebrow out in full force.   
“You… what? How’s that work?”  
Boyd takes a deep breath.   
“Well. When I told you the question of ‘How long?’ didn’t have an easy answer, I meant it. Mainly because...” He rubs his hand over his face and blinks, trying to put something into words he’s only half sure he understands himself. “What happened to me these past few days, – ah, I better just tell the story, don’t I? Though some of it is going to be speculation.”

Ava watches him with renewed interest and waits, while he tries to put his thoughts in some semblance of order she will actually have a chance of following.   
“I’m sure it’s not news to you that I’ve often made a detour to the puddle in Cumberland before going in for my shift, to,… well, you know…”   
Drown his sorrows, is what he can’t bring himself to say, because if he hates anything, it’s being melodramatic. And the fact that what he truly thought of as his proper purpose at the time was gone and he’d had no idea how to forge a new path for himself after, well, it made him feel like he hadn’t grown as a person at all. Ava squeezes his arm lightly, but doesn’t say anything. She knows a thing or two about what he’s going through after all. 

“Anyway, a couple of days ago, a lady approaches me as I sit at the bar, minding my own business, and makes it hers to entangle me in conversation.”  
“And she managed to do that?”  
“Yes, by buying me another drink. And in hindsight I’m quite certain she must have used her pull as well, because lovely though she was, I suspect her natural charm wouldn’t have been enough to draw me out, considering the circumstance. As it stands, I barely remember what we were talking about or how long, before she decided it was time that we should leave the joint together.”  
“She decided that, huh?”  
“As I said, the strength of her persuasion was quite a ways from what you would usually consider ‘feminine wiles’. Though to be honest, in the moment, I was not as averse to the kind of distraction her interest promised as I thought. It just turns out that once we were on our own, there was more on the menu than I’d bargained for – namely me.”

Boyd watches Ava’s eyebrows creep ever further up her forehead, which would be comical if he wasn’t trying to get through this with a modicum of his dignity intact and focused on other things.   
“So… she bit you?”  
“Yes, rather unexpectedly, right in the middle of…” He lets that statement taper off into a pause and an awkward wave of his hand.  
“Having sex…? We’re both adults, you know, we can talk about it. So, is that how it usually happens with the, you know…” she bares her teeth in the most adorable intimation of a bite which makes him stifle an actual fit of laughter with his hand, answering her through his fingers. 

“It’s a possibility, not a necessity, and certainly very pleasurable if you have a partner who’s considerate with curbing their thirst at the right moment, which she didn’t of course. She was aiming to drain me dry and skip out on that tab with no one the wiser. Alas, the joke was on her, though, since with my last breaths, I began to turn and she crumbled to ash.”  
“Which is not normally how that story goes.”  
“Not ordinarily, no. As per usual, to turn somebody, an exchange of a different kind of bodily fluids is mandatory,” he explains with a cheeky wink. “But this unlucky lady had the bad fortune to set her eyes on a meal that sure as hell didn’t agree with her.”  
Ava swats him in the chest with the back of her hand: “You are egregiously full of yourself, Boyd Crowder.”  
“No, no, I mean that quite literally. I think biting me was what set off her demise, just like…”

Boyd hadn’t really put together until this moment, the disparate parts of the story drifting through his mind as puzzle pieces, until he had to pour it into an explanation for Ava. But it all fits together now and he’s terribly sure from one moment to the next that this is exactly what happened to him as well. As he recalls again the memory that came back to him just a short while ago, he sees terrified hazel eyes meeting his over the heaving chin of a dying soldier, only he wasn’t dying, he was turning and there was fire running through his veins. Both their bodies that knew each other as intimately as centuries, aeons, could make them, being consumed from the inside and they were locked together in their last moments – never further apart.

His breath stalls in his throat with an unnameable emotion strangling him and he has to find a way to get through this, to push it down, because he can’t fall apart about it right now and …  
“Boyd?” Ava looks at him with wide eyes.  
“… like me. That’s what happened to me. I just remembered, the last time I… the battle was over and we were so, so _hungry_ and there was this soldier, he was dying already, but there was something different. When I drank from him, his blood, it felt like poison, like burning, from inside out. I was _dead_ and then I was me, human, with no memory, but of this one life. And now I’m me, I’m all of me, again and I haven’t the slightest notion how or why.”

He feels himself babble, unable to stop the disjointed pieces of thought come running out of his mouth and it’s like he cannot stop himself until Ava’s hand slips into his and squeezes tight, her hard-edged voice calling him back from the brink.   
“Boyd, Boyd, listen, I might! I might have an idea.”  
“What?”  
“I think I might know how, if not really why.”  
He turns to her incredulously: “You do?”  
Ava bites her lip and nods, squinting a little like she does when she’s trying to recall something. 

“Yes, I… my Nana, she would gather us round and tell us stories, she had a gift for that, to make sure we knew what’s out there and how to take care of ourselves. And sometimes, them stories sounded like tall tales even so, too obscure and embellished, but she told them so well, we didn’t mind either way.”  
Boyd knows as well as anyone that families around these parts each have their own tradition of telling their children what goes in the night, so he is not at all surprised Ava might have heard a tale he himself has no knowledge of.  
“How did it go?”  
Ava bites her lip uncertainly and turns to sit across from him so they can face each other.   
“It was… that… you know what, I think I need to tell it like she did, so I can get it all together again.”  
Boyd waves his hand for her to continue, letting her get into the story at her own pace.   
“There… there was a young woman named Geneva, who spent her life working hard to make her family proud. But she was shy and unremarkable of appearance, so there weren’t many people she was close to and more than once, she overheard people talking about her all mocking-like, but nobody noticed her there. She was hurt by such callousness, of course, which made her curl up inside her shell even more, living on her own, surrounded only by books she found her solace in. She loved books, especially spooky stories, gothic romance, all the tales that leave you shuddering in the dark. Inside those stories, she would imagine herself the heroine and she was happy then.”  
Ava’s voice lilts in her singular cadence, and Boyd listens with rapt attention.

“One day though, as Geneva was going about her business, she heard a voice, like a whisper, right next to her ear, saying _’The bite will set you free.’_. She turned around quickly, but there was no one there, so she dismissed it and vowed to read a few less spooky stories. She heard it again, days later, the voice growing stronger, but still she dismissed it, and decided to go out for once, mingle with people and as she was out walking, she happened upon a shop that displayed the most gorgeous red gown she had ever seen. And something in the back of her mind overcame her shyness and reluctance until she went into the shop and bought that dress, even though it cost a pretty penny and she could not think of an occasion to wear it to. Still, it felt right, like something she would need soon and in the falling dusk, she hurried home. Closing the door behind her, Geneva carefully set down the bag and stepped into her room, drawing up short when she realized, she wasn’t alone.”  
Boyd knows the story is paced for effect, but he still finds himself leaning forward into Ava’s space, wanting to know what happens next, and he feels Ava react with a small smile as she lowers her voice. 

“In the dark of her room, a man stood, his fingers brushing the spines of her books, but she could feel bright, cold eyes ringed with silver on her face, watching her as she stood frozen in the doorway. He asked her why she liked spooky stories and how she would feel about being in one. He turned to her so the moonlight falling through her window illuminated his face, his mouth open to show a row of glinting fangs. She realized what he was, but could not do anything against the pull of his voice when he told her to come closer. She walked towards him, knowing she should be very afraid. But there was no fear in her heart when he reached for her, only the whisper again telling her _’The bite will set you free.’_. And finally with it came the realization that it was the sound of her own voice she heard and that the rapid beating of her heart came from anticipation. She let him cradle her face and bend her neck to the side so he could slide his piercing kiss against her skin and felt her life’s blood leave her. Felt herself weaken in his embrace until a fire started in her veins and he choked against her, rearing back with a pained and frightened roar. They locked eyes and she witnessed the spark of whatever had sustained his monstrous life fade, as it made hers flare back up inside her. Knowing his fate, he asked her what it was like to be a sleeper. Geneva, watching him decay and slowly crumble as memories of her past lives, human and eternal, flooded back to her, answered him that it was hell. And then she whispered that one day, a bite would set him free. Once he was reduced to mere ashes and she was fully returned, she put on the blood-red dress, did herself up pretty as a picture and remembered that there was a dance hall where some of the young men who’d mocked her earlier in the day had planned to go, to ‘score some game’. With one last look towards the dust coating the floor of her room, she stepped out the door, a smile stretched over her newly sharpened teeth and a new whisper on her lips: _Happy hunting, boys!_ ”

Boyd watches Ava sit back and blinks for a moment, letting the story settle.   
“ _The bite will set you free…_ ”, he whispers under his breath.   
“Yeah. That sounds like your story, doesn’t it? More or less…”  
“It does,” he laces his fingers together on his knees to keep them from shaking, “what were they called? Sleepers?”  
“Mhmhm, cursed to live human lifetime after lifetime until they found another biter to pass the curse on to, my Nana said.”  
Boyd closes his eyes and ponders the length of time that lies between the last remembrance and the here and now, and if he concentrates, he can grasp for scraps of in-between, sure in that moment that all of those memories will return to him in good time as well. And then he blinks and recalls what the vamp said, when she was writhing with pain against the open door of his car: _’Sleepers are supposed to be a myth.’_ It sure sounds like Ava’s story is the right kind of thread to pull. But it doesn’t do to get lost in that right now. There is a maelstrom beginning to turn in his mind and if he doesn’t do something normal, trivial, to shift his focus for a bit, it’ll drag him under.

He opens his eyes abruptly and then rolls to his feet with catlike grace, stretching his arm out to Ava to help her up.   
“I’m thinking that is enough story time, for now.”  
Ava laces her fingers in his after half a beat of hesitation and lets herself be tugged up.   
“But…”  
“No. I know there’s still a lot to unpack, and I promise you we will figure out the answers to those questions together. But I can’t be late for another shift and I have to take care of the rabble first. Wouldn’t want the next lawman to make it his business snooping around to stumble upon the trash in the kitchen.”  
Ava frowns at him before following his gaze when he inclines his head towards the kitchen doorway. She starts when she sees the corner of a black trash bag on the floor and remembers that there’s three corpses that came out of this whole affair. Her hand tightens reflexively around his as a shiver trickles through her and he feels compelled again to offer: “Ava, I’ll take care of this, I promise. But if you change your mind, if you… say the word and I’ll be gone as well.”

Her head snaps back to him, eyes sharp and shrewd and she answers categorically: “No.”  
“Ava, I…”  
“No. I know why you did what you did, even if it wasn’t… You saved my life,” she lifts her free hand and rests it against his cheek so he has no choice but to look at her, “And the fact that not only would you give me that choice, but respect it, tells me that I don’t need to make it. We’re fine, alright?”  
And she surprises him again by tugging him close to lay her cheek against his and turn her head slightly to brush a kiss on his rough skin. He lets it happen, frozen in the moment, until she draws back and holds his eyes with unwavering determination before turning and nodding towards the crumpled forms on the kitchen floor, addressing them with surprising vitriol in her voice:  
“Now, take out the trash and get yourself to work. And by daybreak, you’ll be back here, at home.”  
Boyd is acutely aware of her hand sliding down over his neck and chest, her fingers tapping there a couple of times before she steps over to pick up their crystal tumblers and stalks towards the kitchen to clean up. He stares after her for a beat and confirms her pronouncement with the only thing that’s left to say: “Yes, Ma’am,” before proceeding to do just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, the most comprehensive chapter on lore yet and the biggest part of the mystery around Boyd's turning revealed. WOW, I can't believe we're already here. Full disclosure, I got the sleeper myth from some dramaturgical material around the musical Tanz der Vampire (Dance of the Vampires) at least a decade and a half ago and it always fascinated me endlessly. I thought it was a bit obscure, but kinda established vampire lore and always wondered why not more people were using it. Well, after I decided to make it the base for this story and went to search for the sources, turns out it isn't. It's really only that one short story that had excerpts printed in the programme for the musical and all credit for its invention goes to the original author. Which is of course why I'm linking the story here: http://www.vampyrbibliothek.de/geschriebenes/kurzgeschichten/gaeste-dunkel/027-schlaefer.htm (The original is in German, so I expect a lot of you won't be able to read it, but the way I used it, even if ascribed to Ava's Nana, is pretty much a paraphrashed translation, minus a few unimportant details. Still, gotta credit where it is due).
> 
> Second, I don't know what to say, you guys, that scene I was talking about adding and working on? Turns out there was a whole NEW CHAPTER missing in between there. Holy smokes, you're welcome. It's pretty much written now and in hindsight was very very necessary, but it's rippling edits all the way down the line, so I will be taking a posting break next week as planed to give myself time to deal with all that, shuffling the outline around, checking that the context matches down the line etc. But I promise we'll be going back to the regularly scheduled programming on Dec. 5th. 
> 
> And now I'm going to go and watch the last ever episode of Supernatural. I am NOT READY. *bawls*


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK. And On Time (well, early if you wanna be picky, but I guess that's better than the other way round, right? Anyway, I'm sure it's Saturday already somewhere in the world). You guys, I missed you last week, but it was so, so necessary to take that break, because in the wake of it, I have not one, not two, but THREE new chapters that now coalesced in the middle of the fic, which will be upcoming till the end of the year. It has me looking at my outline distribution and makes me wanna cry, but I swear the fic is so much better for it (ask my always and forever best and first reader silkylustre, she's dealing with re-betaing the whole shebang all over and over even though it's still not her fandom and she deserves ALL the thanks). Ok, I'll stop now. Short chapter this week, but well, the next ones will be shiny and new and longer, I promise.

He is in the Court House, walking back towards the Marshall’s office when the dizziness hits, tilting his vision sideways abruptly. His shoulder connects with the wall, as he stumbles and he tries to ground himself in the solidity and texture of it as his senses spin out. It works for a moment, feeling like the world is going to go right side up again, but before he can figure up from down again, a pervasive metallic taste bursts behind his teeth, like he took a hit, and blood from a split lip or a bit tongue is flooding his mouth. He grits his teeth against the electric sensation, gums pulsing with a strange ache that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, gooseflesh racing down his back and arms when he hears the reverberating sound of a thud grow closer.  
“Raylan? Hey, Raylan?”  
There’s movement out of the corner of his eye and before he can even so much as process that, his hand is up, iron grip catching the arm before it comes any closer.   
“Raylan, are you… ow, shit…”  
He can feel the vein pulse under his thumb in tandem with the jarring thud in his ears and time stands frozen for a flash as he looks into eyes that are green and brilliant and wide with terror, before everything sharpens and the mirage melts into Tim’s concerned frown. 

“Easy there, tiger. Man, you’ve got the reflexes of a cat. Are you alright? Did you hear the news already?”  
Raylan blinks once and barely keeps himself from shaking his head like a dog that’s got one on the nose, before the words truly register. He lets go of Tim’s wrist to rub at his eyes, feeling a tension headache bloom.  
“News? What news?”  
When he looks back at Tim, his fellow Marshall is looking apprehensive in that way he sometimes has when the others send him give Raylan information they know is likely to blow a fuse. And normally Tim’s puppy dog pout is enough to keep Raylan from at least shooting the messenger, but right now there’s something in Tim’s posture that electrifies the air the second Raylan realizes it and it snaps him through the haze into instant awareness. 

“Tim… what’s going on?”  
“Uhm… we just got word about a robbery downtown with the possible involvement of a fugitive parolee and…” Tim hesitates and then wilts under Raylan’s razor focus after a second, “… Winona was in the bank when it happened. She’s fine…” the young Marshall holds up his hands as if to stave off the brewing storm, “just a bit banged up. She’s already been cleared by EMS and made her statement.”  
“What? Where is she now?”   
Raylan can feel himself winding tighter, ready to spring at anything at a moment’s notice, but somehow that has the opposite effect on Tim, the young man turning cool as a cucumber now, fricking sniper’s calm.   
“She’s probably in the office by now, Art’s been called in to review some of the evidence as well,” Tim answers, throwing his thumb over his shoulder towards the door to the Marshall’s office. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Raylan takes a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his fists a couple of times. He tells himself that whatever the earlier episode was, he doesn’t have time for that kinda shit right now and nods sharply towards Tim before he stalks off to see what the damage is and just how slowly he needs to skin a gang of bank robbers for it once he finds them. He doesn’t miss Tim’s put upon sigh at his back and knows the young Marshall is following him to watch the fireworks, but for once, Raylan is actually also concerned with making sure Winona is alright, so he’s going to measure his response into not scaring her himself. The talk they had this morning in the evidence locker about maybe changing his life, moving back to Georgia to teach at Glynco and trying for that family after all, it burns in the back of his mind. He finds he really doesn’t do well with being on the opposite end of the equation of having your significant other being in danger. But at least his position as a Marshall will allow him to do something about it. 

When Winona turns around at his desk with a cold pack pressed against her bruised cheek, she meets his eyes with the kind of anticipatory apprehension that makes his senses tingle. He reaches out to check on her and she lets him gingerly dab at her split brow without complaint. Meeting his admonishment about the procedure he taught her to follow with nothing short of relief in her eyes, like she’s glad she’s only getting the rundown from him? That makes the small hairs at the back of his neck stand up. And then there’s a tick in her jaw that tells him she saw, because she knows him too well and he watches anxious resolve creep into her stance. If she ever was one thing though, Winona is not one to beat around the bush, so she doesn’t make him wait for long.  
“Can I talk to you? Somewhere private?”  
“Winona, what’s going on?”  
The mulish look tells him that he will only get this out of her and faster if no one else can overhear them, but whatever it is can’t be good if she doesn’t want to discuss it in an office filled with Marshalls.

~*~

“You did what?”  
“I know, I know. It was a dumb thing to do. I knew it in the moment and I was going to leave the bank and put it back into evidence, now, was I? I’m sorry I didn’t anticipate getting robbed, but now that bill’s in the loot and what happens if they get caught and it gets flagged by the secret service? I don’t know what to do!”  
Raylan stifles a sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose, to try and gather his thoughts. The headache is blooming strong and fierce in the back of his head, as he looks back up to meet Winona’s eyes, just to see hazel green bleed over steely blue again taking him back to the moment in the hallway earlier. It makes him wonder how he always falls in love with people who have a mind to get themselves into trouble. Raylan stills for a beat, pondering whether he should go back and examine that thought.   
Deciding he still doesn’t have the time nor the inclination to lose his mind right now, he opts to concentrate on the problem in front of him.   
“Of course I’ll help you.”  
Winona’s face lights up with relief and Raylan resigns himself to going on a side-quest for contraband as he chases the robbers. 

Of course, that endeavour doesn’t really go anywhere for the rest of the day, though Art sure seems to have fun going after his great white whale by the name of Frank Reasoner. There is a tense moment when the Chief calls Raylan into the office to brief him on that history and he has the urge to pre-emptively spill the beans, irrationally sure for a moment that Art has the ability to listen in on Winona’s whispered confession through the doors of the closed of locker room. He manages to hold his tongue, but not before Art actually tilts his head in that way he has, as if he’s puzzling out something that’s off about Raylan, but he isn’t quite sure what it might be. It makes him wonder whether it might have been a good idea to read in the Chief after all, let him help fix this mess for Winona, but the thought gets tangled up in all of Raylan’s issues for long enough that the moment passes before he can make a decision one way or the other. 

After spending the rest of the day stomping after fruitless leads, Raylan ends up dragging himself into the motel with bleary eyes and nothing to show but the vague certainty that the robbers are probably going to make another move the next day.   
Despite the fact that he needs to be sharp tomorrow, the prospect of more weird nightly visions leads him to down about three fingers of Scotch, leaning his aching head against the porcelain edge of the tub, the only thing in his room that’s approximately cool. His sleep, though, when he finally makes himself lie down on the bed properly, is for once both dreamless and uninterrupted.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter, yay. This is the first one of the newly extended bits, I know that made last weeks entry a bit of a filler, but I hope it pays off with the way this developed. Have fun reading!

When Boyd returns from his shift the next after, well… After, padding into the kitchen, he finds Ava preparing her breakfast and doesn’t realize until he has leaned over and kissed her good morning on the cheek, that this is the first time they’ve touched since everything has been out in the open and like nothing was out of the ordinary. Well, not quite, since they’d certainly hadn’t reached the kind of understanding before, to be affectionate with each other in this way. And even if they were, he wasn’t really one to dole out kisses like that, except, maybe for a time, in another life. The way Ava turns to him with both a small smile and questioning look in her eyes clues him in on the fact that the shift is noted, but not unwelcome. And that apparently, despite everything pointing towards the opposite direction, they have truly gone from tacit, sometimes companionable co-habitation to something else, more – complicated. He doesn’t feel quite ready for it. 

“I won’t be leaving for work tonight.”  
Ava’s open expression slides into a frown. “What happened?”  
“Oh, they took me off shift for the night, told me to stay home and have a bit of a rest since I’m apparently meeting some kind of executive tomorrow morning first thing.”  
“Ah. Do you think it has something to do with…”  
“I don’t see how that’s possible. Kyle and his merry band of dunces have missed one shift and I sure haven’t distinguished myself in a particular way, since, you know…”  
When the answer doesn’t seem to satisfy Ava, he takes her hand, brushing his thumb over her knuckles in a soothing manner.   
“Look, I’m sure there is an agenda to it, but its origin must lie somewhere else, beyond the events of the last few days. I’ll go up tomorrow morning, see what’s what. And I’m quite sure that whatever they throw at me, I can handle.”

Ava pins him with a piercing gaze, turning her hand in his to squeeze.   
“I just don’t want you to get yourself into trouble.”  
It’s worded as a request, but Boyd hears the order loud and clear.   
“I won’t.”  
Ava nods, looking satisfied for the moment by his promise. As she turns back towards the stove, he leans his hip against the counter and crosses his arms, wincing when the move pulls at his back. Ava unfortunately catches the motion just out of the corner or her eye, and looks up sharply.   
“What was that?”  
“Nothing, it’s fine.”

In the face of her thunderous expression, Boyd’s shoulders start making their way towards his ears without his permission.  
“Didn’t look like nothing to me. Looked like you were hurting.”  
“I’m not.”  
He tries to move out of reach, but Ava is surprisingly quick when she wants to be, catching his arm and startling a hiss out of him at the electric sensation that radiates out from between his ribs in response.   
“The hell you ain’t, what’s going on?”  
“Ava, I’m not lying, I’m not in pain. It’s more like… fingernails on a chalkboard, or hitting your funny bone.”  
“I see.” her tone suggests that his explanation does not impress her. ”And what’s the cause of all that?”  
Now, Boyd squirms bodily under her scrutiny, which is nothing short of embarrassing. He meant to get this taken care of on his own, in time, with her none the wiser, but he hasn’t really found a solution for the logistics yet. 

Well, too late now. Looks like it’s time to bite the proverbial…  
“The bullets.”  
“Say what now?”  
That response would be comical if Boyd wasn’t so incredibly wary of what is likely to come after. Closing his eyes against her scandalized expression, he presses his lips into a thin line. This is exactly why he was trying to avoid this.   
“Ava, I got shot twice yesterday and it wasn’t exactly a through-and-through. It’s… everything’s healed, it’s fine; there is no lasting damage. But… the bullets are still in there, scarred over and one of them just chafes against a lower rib from time to time. It’s nothing.”  
When he opens his eyes again, Ava is gaping at him and he cringes in response. 

“It’s nothing? Boyd, why… I can’t believe you!” she takes a deep breath, pinching the skin between her eyes and then she slashes her hand through the air towards him. “You know what? I don’t care. Strip.”  
“Wh… What?”   
Now it’s his turn to gape.  
“Come on, I need to take a look at this. Off!”  
He was prepared for any manner of reaction, but not this, which is maybe why his body lurches into motion before he has even finished his next thought, fingers slipping beneath the buttons of his shirt as he turns his back. Before he can think better of it, he shucks the fabric off his shoulders and tugs his arms out of his sleeves until he’s got his shirt balled up in his hands in front of him. When he hears Ava gasp – not much more than a quiet exhalation of breath – he half turns, meeting her wide eyes over his shoulder. Her hand is stretched out in front of her, only a couple of inches from his skin and she looks at him with _something_ blooming in her eyes. He holds her gaze for a moment, wondering whether this is too far, whether Ava will shy away from her own reaction this time. 

He’s never been wanting for company, when he goes looking for it, but his assets have always been less… objectively physical in nature, charm and a charismatic smile doing the trick just as easily as classically handsome features. And while he’s always been strong, it was a lithe, rangy kind of strength, more defined by privation than purposeful exercise. He hasn’t gotten any bigger with the change, but his musculature has become… sleeker, more effortless and graceful in movement. And he knows there’s something preternatural about it as well, like the pull, but more, subliminal, inward going. A lure for potential prey. He has used it with masterful precision and to great effect in the past, but he hadn’t counted at all on Ava to be affected in any way. He pulls it back into himself as much as he is consciously able, watching a little shiver through Ava, as she blinks, once, slowly, in response. He feels like he should say something. Apologize, offer an explanation and set some kind of boundary. Instead he watches with a dry mouth how Ava stands transfixed for another moment and then shakes herself away from their eye contact with a conscious exertion of will. 

The moment breaks when she fixes her gaze instead somewhere on his shoulder blade, nostrils flaring in stubborn silence, and her eyes feel like they’re scraping his skin raw wherever they pass. Then she abruptly stretches her fingers the last of the distance, nudging the place where an unnatural lump raises his skin. He doesn’t flinch, but the involuntary spasm of the muscles that healed stubbornly around the alien element in his body feels electric and uncomfortable. 

~*~*~

“There’s not even a scar.”  
She traces the misshapen lump under his skin, feeling the ragged edges where one bullet bloomed on impact and marvelling to herself about the way his body just – took the damage and mended it, as if it truly was nothing.   
“There wouldn’t be. Damage like that heals fully… in a matter of hours if not minutes,” depending on how close a feeding is, he doesn’t say, but she hears the implication well enough.   
“And it really doesn’t hurt?” she asks, needing to concentrate on these straightforward, clinical questions to keep her mind from wandering into the more embarrassing territory she’s just barely shaken herself out of. She’ll have to reflect on that later. Right now, however, is about getting him to stop shutting her out. Everything else is just a distraction.   
“No, Ava, it doesn’t hurt. I don’t register pain the same way anymore, in any case. I still feel it when I get injured of course, since pain is a warning system for damage to your body, but it’s more like a blinking light than a screaming klaxon.”

“Hmm,” Ava finds herself humming in response, and yet, the answer doesn’t satisfy, “I understand. Still, were you just going to leave those bullets in like that indefinitely?”  
She brushes her fingers further down to where she’s just about able to feel the second projectile stuck much deeper in the tissue with some applied pressure.   
“Of course not. There is no risk of infection – no silver, thankfully – so it’s not an immediate concern. I was going to find a way to get them out, but seeing as I can’t reach behind my back, the options were limited.”  
That makes Ava’s temper flare and she parries with a scathing reply:  
“Well, it’s not like you have one such option. right. fucking. here, is it?” jabbing her finger hard into the very spot they’re talking about to punctuate every word and taking vindictive pleasure in the way he jumps every time. “Why didn’t you come to me?”  
She waits for him to think it through and acknowledge how stupid he was being, keeping this from her. But of course that infuriating man does no such thing, he doubles down instead.   
“Ava, you… there is so much for you to work through right now, with everything that’s happened these past couple of days, and I just… I couldn’t pile yet another request, another level of weird on top of that.”

Ava finds herself at a loss for words in the moment, mouth falling open, before an explosive sigh bellows out of her chest.   
“Boy, do I have news for you!”  
“Ava…”  
“No, shut up. You… – actually you and Raylan both, I swear, it’s like you’re two peas in a pod. Always ready to slay my monsters, never mind that nobody asked you to. But guess what?” she clasps his shoulder and turns him to face her properly, refusing to go on until he meets her eyes, “I don’t need your protection. Yes, shit is weird, things that have theoretically been real all my life are _really_ real now and it feels like that should fill my quota for the year. But that doesn’t matter. That’s not how it works. You can’t just parcel out your troubles into easily digestible bites and turn it off when you don’t feel like it. We are family and we are _there_ for each other. And that is not a one-way street, alright? I need you to _get_ this.”

“I do get it, Ava, believe me, I do…”  
“Do you, really? Cause from where I’m standing, your actions imply that you think I couldn’t possibly care for you the same way that you care for me.”  
That shuts him right up, and good thing too, since she’s just about ready to throw down over this long-suffering manly man’s bullshit. But that would distract her again from her actual mission, so she revels in Boyd’s gobsmacked silence for a glorious couple of seconds only, before getting back to the point.   
“Now, you go, sit down and tell me how I do this right.”


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for PTSD-flavoured flashback and wartime gore (I know this chapter might not look like it at first but it packs a punch, ho, boy) – as always, if you’d rather skip it, use the trigger dividers (~*~*~) for reference. Since this one is a bit more essential to the plot following than previous such sections, I will put a short summary explanation in the end notes. As always, do what you need to do to keep yourself safe!

Boyd finds himself sitting in a kitchen chair, using the whole of his current – and considerable – faculties to keep his hand from crushing the backrest to splinters. Well, actually he is using his grip on the flimsy wood as a focus to keep his instincts in check. Those reflexes that were grooved so deeply into his reawakened predator’s mind by centuries on the hunt are so awfully close to the surface now, he can scarcely get a hold of them, even with all his concentration thrown behind it. 

When he told Ava that she would never have anything to fear from him, he meant it to the marrow of his bones. However, he hadn’t ever taken into account that there might come a time when she’d stand at his back, just out of sight, with a short, freshly sharpened kitchen knife in hand, ready to draw blood. The fact that he is reasonably sure he’s going to let her speaks of a trust he hasn’t felt in a century and a half. Whatever he has done to inspire the same – entirely undeserved – trust in her, he does not know. But damn him for not thinking about this possibility before they found themselves at this point, since ‘reasonably sure’ not the kind of odds he is at all comfortable with and this might have been the one argument that could have derailed her. To start in on it now, though, at the last possible moment, is more likely to make his focus waver to both their detriment without accomplishing anything else, so there’s no point in trying to head off the inevitable. 

Her breath ruffles the back of his neck, sending gooseflesh rippling down his spine. Her heartbeat is loud in his ears and only a boon because it is so calm and steady, he cannot be helped but be soothed by it.  
“Ready?”  
He wants to say he isn’t, but that would be a lie. He’s as ready as he is ever going to get.  
“Yes… No, are you wearing the gloves, like I told you?”  
He can practically hear the eye-roll in her voice when she answers: “Yes, of course I am.”  
“Alright, just… don’t touch my blood.”  
In this modern world that knows so much more about infections and contaminants – and he doesn’t want to think too closely about the ways he’s lived most of his eternal life in that context – there is perhaps a path towards better understanding the mechanics of how he became what he is. Still, while he is pretty sure Ava is in no danger of accidentally turning even with limited precautions, it doesn’t do to take chances. Not in this.  
“I won’t, I promise.”

Neither the timbre of her voice, nor the cadence of her heartbeat changes, so the only thing betraying that her calm isn’t infinite is the slightest tremor in her fingers, when she sets them on his shoulder blade to stretch the skin around the bullet that is closer to the surface. He makes himself go unnaturally still in the moment the blade bites into his flesh. It doesn’t hurt exactly, like he told Ava it wouldn’t, at least it’s not the kind of pain he is most recently familiar with in his life. And this first one is comparatively easy, since Ava does not have to do much more than cut open a little half-moon and scrape the bullet out from underneath a little flap of skin. But the instant the scent of his own blood hits his nose, he is drawing in air with a sharp hiss, followed by fast, bellowing breaths he doesn’t need, strictly speaking, but that contract his lungs with the sharp sting anyway. His body just reacts, without his say so.  
“Are you alright? Should I stop?”  
“No! No, don’t. I can’t… you need to…”  
He doesn’t know what he’s saying until there is a warm weight on his shoulder, a single point of contact for him to focus on and he hears Ava speak as if from far away: “Ok, alright, I’ll be quick.”

(~*~*~)

But that doesn’t matter anymore, because a second later it’s suddenly so loud all around him, the rattling rapport of high calibre munitions deafening in his ears. And for a moment he thinks himself back in Kuwait, under mortar fire, but that’s not right, the sound is different and there is no desert around him. On the contrary, the air is moist and foggy, with barely more than ten hand-spans of visibility and the stench of perpetually wet, rotting flesh permeating everything. There’s walls of packed earth going up on all sides of him, further up than a man’s height, like he’s an animal in a pit. Men are screaming bloody murder nearby. There are silhouettes scurrying at the edge of his vision, man-shaped but for their faces, which are distorted by big, bulbous eyes and a distended protrusion where the mouth should be, inhuman and terrifying, like his addled mind has dragged creatures of nightmare to the surface of the earth. 

And there is pain, like he’s sure he has never felt before – and which he is somehow expecting to be radiating from his back, but instead, his insides feel like someone stuck a firecracker into his lower abdomen and lit the fuse.  
It hurts.  
Hands are scrambling at his ragged skin, and again he feels like they should be a gentle touch on his shoulder, but actually, acutely in this moment it’s like they’re trying to keep parts of him from falling out. And once that thought is in his head, he is abruptly sure, so sure, that this is exactly what’s happening. 

He wants to leave this place after that moment of realization, doesn’t want to think about it anymore; just wants the cool, sweet embrace of oblivion, which should be so close to the touch. However, something is keeping him, someone, rather, a voice that’s suddenly loud in his ears over the cacophony of war, pleading: “No, no, Jesus Christ, no, don’t you die on me, you stupid son of a … I can’t _do_ this without you.”  
And he tries to hold on, he really does, for that voice, for those hands he’s sure he knows from a gentler, more intimate touch, even though they’re so busy right now, holding his guts in. But in his heart of hearts, he knows that he is Mercutio in this play, and denial will only prolong the inevitable. Still, he opens his mouth, tries to speak, not to curse his fate and those who wrought it, but to convey his true feelings in these last moments he has. 

He’s not permitted that grace, the words bubbling soundlessly on his lips and the world draws further and further away around him, his ears filled with despondent sobs, as his head falls back, out of his control, to lift his eyes to the sun, half-obscured by fog and ashes, one last time. And in that moment, when his vision wavers, it is filled with the sight of incandescent beauty, hazy features wreathed by golden locks than haloed by the diffuse light of the weakened sun. An angel, for surely it cannot be anything else, even if they’re apparently being sent to come for the unlikeliest of charges. The apparition is barely visible with his fading perception, but when their mouth opens to speak, he strains to listen regardless. Even though the sound never travels past his ears into comprehensible form, there must be a comforting peace conveyed in their words, for he feels strangely light and unafraid in the midst of the agony, after. 

(~*~*~)

The moment feels suspended in time, the in between of life and death stretching in his mind’s eye for a breath of endlessness, before all shape and colour blurs and the image in front of him sharpens into Ava’s face, all crisp lines and liquid shadows thrown onto her features, backlit by the overhead light in the kitchen and a far cry from the ethereal, hallowed glow.  
“Boyd? Are you alright?”  
And yet, her mouth forms words the same way as her angelic counterpart, only now there’s sound to go with it, because he is not dying on a battlefield, he is here, and now, in her house, in Ava’s care and her voice leads him back to himself out of the memory.  
“Can you hear me? Boyd?”  
“Ye…s”, he fumbles, the single syllable sticking in his suddenly dry throat. “Yes, I’m fine, I hear you.”  
He watches the frown clear from Ava’s face in response, but a deep worry stays in her eyes. He licks his lips to give himself time to think and casts around for something reassuring to say to her.  
“It’s alright, we can go on.”

That certainly has the opposite effect, her expression clouding over once again and the why of that becomes apparent when she replies: “Boyd,… I’m done. I’ve been talking to you, trying to reach you, for at least two full minutes now, but you just… went away, inside your own head. What happened?”  
He looks at her with incredulous dread gathering in the pit of his stomach, which is now hale and whole, but clenched with tension.  
“I… a memory,” is what he manages, finally, feebly.  
And when Ava continues to look at him, clearly waiting for him to go on, he recalls the horrific moments in stark clarity and his words fail him, again. 

Instead, another thought enters his mind and he looks Ava over quickly.  
“Wait… I didn’t… do anything, did I?”  
Ava looks fine at first glance, but for all that she’s grouching about him about omitting those bullets, he wouldn’t put it past _her_ to conceal a dire wound if she thought someone else’s plight was a more urgent concern.  
“No, you didn’t move a muscle. At first I thought you were just holding really still so I could work as quickly as possible - and the second projectile was a bit trickier, I admit. I thought for sure you’d at least wince at the way I had to go rooting around in there…”  
She looks actually queasy for a moment, before he finds himself pinned again by her single-minded focus.  
“But once I was done and asked you if you were ok, you were just… gone. Away.”  
And that was frightening her, she doesn’t say but for her eyes. 

She bits her lip and then asks: “Does that happen often?”  
Boyd draws in a sharp breath and looks away.  
“Not usually while I’m awake, no.”  
His eyes travel back, taking in her pinched mouth and drawn brow, quiet sympathy written all over her expression.  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
He stills for a moment, wonders for a beat at how he’s supposed to put these horrors into words and “... I can’t, Ava, I c…”  
“That’s alright,” she interrupts him, her hand reaching out, then hesitating an inch away from his face, only splaying her fingers on his cheek after he leans across the last of the distance and into her touch.  
“You don’t need to, if it doesn’t… if it doesn’t help.”  
He wants to say her tender touch does help, more than she can fathom, but once again, the words don’t make it past his dry lips. Ava’s gaze softens though, as if she understands him anyway. 

She turns away to give him a moment to compose himself as much as to take care of the detritus that is the remnant of their impromptu game of Operation. With a deceptively light tone she tells him:  
“There wasn’t a lot of blood in the end, I think, and the wounds started to close pretty quickly. But…” she turns back to him with a bit of an apprehensive air about her,”… are you going to need…?”  
Boyd shakes his head before she can finish the sentence.  
“No, what I… yesterday… I had plenty. I should be fine for a couple more days at least.”  
He stands up, noting with relief that nothing twinges in his back and then starts fidgeting with his shirt so he can avoid looking at Ava as they dance around the fact that the reason he is going to be fine is due to the fact that he drained a man dry in her living room yesterday. 

Half turned away from her as he is, he spots her movement out of the corner of his eyes, suppressing the reflex to lash out, but is still somewhat surprised when her fingers brush against the skin of his upper arm, leaving a ripple of gooseflesh in their wake.  
“Your tattoos are gone,” she says, like she only just realized looking at him now.  
He follows her gaze to the path her fingers took and huffs out a little breath: “Hmm, yes. That happens, with the change.”  
He looks down at his hands then, flexes them to watch the skin stretch over his knuckles where the crude, crooked letters of SKIN – HEAD are no longer visible. The razor-wire spanning his lower arms has faded to nothing too. But when he looks up to meet Ava’s eyes, he knows her focus is still on the spot where the ugly, blocky black of the swastika used to sit on his left biceps, hammered painfully into his skin with a prison needle, even though only the faintest outline of it remains now. 

Ava never judged him for it, never even said a word in question, but now he sees something in her eyes when they flick up to his, a strange hesitance, paired with a need to know. He doesn’t feel ready for it, with the way he still feels shaken by the remembrance of what must have been one of his human lives. It certainly doesn’t feel like a sensible course of action that in order to avoid the pitfalls of one conversational frying pan they should walk straight into the flames of another. But he promised Ava unconditional openness and if she can respect the limits of his ability to share, the least he can do is hear her question. So he inclines his head, silently encouraging her to ask. It takes her a couple of tries to put it together, her mouth opening and closing on discarded questions until she settles on:  
“Would you rather, it didn’t?”

For a moment, Boyd is utterly confused by what she’s asking, but when he thinks back the last thing he said, he realizes that she wants to know whether he would prefer the change not to have had that effect. A flippant response leaps on his tongue on how it doesn’t matter one way or the other; the same kind of cagey obfuscation he always uses in these situations, apart from the weighted speaking silence he answered Raylan with, when he asked once up on time. It feels like a lifetime ago now. But this is Ava, and so he pauses himself and closes his mouth again to think about it in earnest for a moment before he answers:  
“Yes… and no.”  
Ava slowly lifts one eyebrow at his answer, but waits patiently for him to continue.  
“I have no interest in tabula rasa. They’re part of my journey and always will be. Just having the visual reminder gone doesn’t erase the responsibility for my choices. And if looking at me and seeing that ink means people are judging me, let them. That doesn’t change what I know to be true about myself or how I live with it.” He pauses for a long moment before going on. “However…”

He might not have had any other option in prison, pressed into the affiliation for survival, as the only corner he fit in and the only way to fall back on the shaky foundation of his father’s protection. But he could have been less defiantly flashy about it. With his skills, it would have been enough just to say the right words to the right people often enough, get ink of questionable symbolism in unobtrusive places and then quietly fade out of the scene and cut ties once he got out. But it had felt good at the time, to lord over that corner in the prison yard unquestioned, to raise his own pathetic little kingdom in that abandoned church, to have power over something after he’d been trapped for years – a way to live his life the way he wanted, answering to no one but his own basest desires; making money and blowing shit up, at the time. And he’s under no illusion that he’s a good enough man to never fall for that kind of temptation again, or that he won’t use this connection as a means to an end in a heartbeat if it furthers his plans in the grand scheme of things. 

“However…,” he takes a deep breath, “if you’ve lived the life I have, as I remember now. Seen decades, centuries of history play out over and over again, you realize that all people are just that, people. No one is worth more or less because of their sex or their creed, the colour of their skin or the circumstance of their birth. Sure, the rich are always going to have a leg up over the poor in some respects, but wealth doesn’t guarantee them happiness or a full life. And it’s what you do with what you get, the content of your character and the strength of your conviction that ultimately decides what your time here is worth. And once you’ve died a senseless, unknown death in the trenches of a Great War among hundreds, thousands of other senseless unknown deaths all around you, you lose any illusion that there’s not one idea that humanity ever has thought up, which is even close to worth the amount of bloodshed they have wrought over it.”

He catches his breath, stunned at how far he’s talked his own blood up with his sermon and only realizes he might have let slip more than he meant to in the wake of his words – judging by Ava’s widening eyes and the way she lays a calming hand on his wrist that’s been flying around in expansive gestures to underscore his point. He closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them again, says with calm, icy determination: “So, would I have chosen to get rid of them on my own? Probably never. But do I have regrets about them being gone? Most certainly not.”  
He looks down at his fingers again and looks for the much older, much more venerated lines underneath the hateful words that he is the only one on earth able to remember instead and feels different about those. He contemplates telling Ava about them for a moment, explain their beauty and significance for a faith that is built on respect for all living things, but he feels too raw and wrung out to muster the energy. Ava, as always, does what he wouldn’t have known to ask for, letting go of his wrist to envelop him in a tentative, then tightening hug. And with her whispered “Alright then, shhh, you’re alright”, he lets the warmth and softness of her frame sooth him, swaying just a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pheeeeww, ok, this is the second of the reworked chapters, and while it doesn't have the same distance I'd normally like to go over it again, I was surprised at how much it got me, prepping it for posting now. I struggled a lot with the white supremacy background of Boyd's biography, especially in light of the cataclysmic events this year and I'm not going to lie, there was a moment or two where I seriously wrestled with the question of whether it'd be appropriate to write in such a sphere as Justified and how to best deal with that aspect without warping the characters. I think I found a solution to this fine line, but I'm well aware the conversation is only just at the beginning of going in the right direction. For now, that is my best attempt to reconcile, I hope it works and you'll forgive me if it doesn't for you. 
> 
> Anyway, just to follow up with the short summary of the clipped scene as promised: Due to the amateur surgery they're attempting, Boyd gets thrown back into memory of being mortally wounded in a wartime setting, living through his last moments while a fellow soldier (who might be linked to him in more than friendship) is futilely trying to save him. The war itself is not identified, but from the setting and surroundings as well as what Boyd later unconsciously says, it's implied to be WWI, thus a human lifetime. 
> 
> Ok, with this dreary tale I send you into the - hopefully happier - holidays (no worries, next week's update will be on schedule and not quite as heavy), stay home and stay safe everyone!


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa... there I was, promising you the new chapter would be on time and now my Saturday at least is almost done, slipped away from me among the last hurrah of Christmas cheer. Well, to offset that, it's a long chapter, and the first one that's a little bit steamy, yo, so I hope that makes up for it being a little bit late. So, happy Holidays, whatever you do or do not celebrate this time of year :).
> 
> I also have less desirable news, but due to the RL situation as it is right now, I'll be going on a posting schedule every other week until further notice. I've made a lot of progress in the past couple of weeks hammering out important details for the last quarter of the plot, but I need to stay ahead with a certain number of chapters so that I have enough time to revise and edit and since a lot of my brainpower went into planning mode, actual writing has been slower and my schedule has been more erratic than I would like. But I'm very happy with how it's coming along over all and I'm very much looking forward to the coming chapters I get to finally write. I hope you'll bear with me and enjoy.

Raylan very much enjoys the opportunity to end the next bank robbery/hostage situation by punching out the overconfident douchebag who thought a local would not be able to tell road flares from dynamite. He’s been loaded for bear all day, not only because Winona’s bruises looked much worse this morning, but also because he’d almost caused a car crash when he had to unexpectedly swerve onto the shoulder of the road on his way in due to the unbearable stench filling the car out of nowhere. He’s prided himself on his no-hurling record, an uninterrupted streak that he’s cultivated for the better part of a decade now, and for all that his job doesn’t bring him in contact with corpses as often as one might think (apart from the freshly made ones, at least), he’s had his share of unpleasant experiences in that regard. This is something else though, and he has to sit there at the side of the road for a full two minutes, gagging on shallow breaths and eyes watering, before it’s gone as soon as it got there and everything goes back to normal in the blink of an eye. He needs another minutes of just sitting there, shaking like a leaf for no reason until he can make himself put the car in gear again before this gets anymore embarrassing. 

So, yes, when the opportunity presents itself, he takes great pleasure in throwing a haymaker to lay out Carter Hayes, who inexplicable styled himself a mastermind when all he ends up being is a getaway distraction for the old man. Thankfully, Art has that one well in hand and overall the department has a good day. Raylan has no trouble at all getting taken up on his offer to log the money from the robbery into evidence. No one is ever that keen on counting and individually archiving large amounts of money. So, going through the cash and holding back the three notes that fit the bill of the kind of old currency Winona found in the locker might still be a felony he’s grudgingly committing, but at least it’s a comparatively easy one. 

It certainly doesn’t hurt that Winona thanks him, enthusiastically and more than once, but by the time they’re resting together in the tangled sheets, her fingers brushing lightly through the fine hairs on his chest while she nods off, he finds himself unable to enjoy the closeness. Despite the fact that the rekindling of their relationship has brought with it a lot of excitement, paired with a comforting sense of familiarity, something feels off to him. They’ve always had their edges rubbing against each other, even early in their marriage, when it was all fun and spice. Now though, he feels like a puzzle piece whose outline has been shaved into a different shape and they don’t fit right anymore. Her hand feels too small and her body too soft against his.   
It takes him a long time to fall asleep. 

~*~+~*~

_The rheumy light of the tallow candle barely makes for a strong enough illumination to deepen the shadows beneath the eerie gleam on the walls. In truth, he wouldn’t have needed it at all, being quite able to see in the dark without aid. It was a combination of habit and the convenience of alerting his arriving companion of his presence, proof that he’d found their secret meeting place despite the horridly complicated instructions.  
“The service tunnel to the grotto? Really, you couldn’t find a danker, more unwelcoming place to meet – the oubliette perhaps?”  
The rustle of a silken robe sounds expensive and utterly incongruous in a room where every second brick is drenched in mouldy moisture with moss and faintly glowing lichen are covering the rest. The sound turns into a slender silhouette in the flickering lamplight before long, accompanied by a scathing remark:   
“You’d be surprised at how a court revolving around a king who is motivated to hold onto power by keeping his aristocracy overfed, vapid and penned in is entirely short on clandestine meeting places.”_

_A smile stretches his lips as he answers: “Don’t cut your nose to spite your face. Where would you be if there were more of those places? You are, after all, the man holding the threads to all there is to know, via the palaces many listening holes and boudoirs, and who decides how to best make use of that knowledge.”  
“Which is precisely why I have an even more vested interest in keeping my private matters _private _.”  
The man steps further into the light, crowding into him as he rises from his perch, in this next step of another age old dance between them that they never tire of.   
“Besides, my position isn’t as untouchable as it looks.”  
“You really think in this cesspool of intrigue and affairs, anyone would care about you taking one man to your bed, even if you’re clergy? I know for a fact that the Papal Nuntius has at least two girls with barely budding breasts warming his bed every night.”_

_He sets his finger upon a silk covered pectoral, letting it slide downwards with barely any pressure, delighting in the shudder it elicits.  
“Hmhmm. I’d rather not give anyone the leverage without need. If someone came to see a man in the colours of the Royal Guard slinking out of a nook after me, that would be a valuable token indeed.”  
He turns his sigh into a put-upon pout: “We should go back to Attica… such a different sense of propriety, plus, wrestling in the nude, I could appreciate that right now. All this pomp and circumstance and pretend morality, binding oneself in literal or figurative corsets in a gilded cage… What do you say we just ready our packs and leave? Nothing is really holding us here.”  
“Au contraire, mon cher. There’s plenty that needs my attention. Besides, Attica isn’t what it once was in that regard either.”  
He presses in close, letting his nose brush the other’s cheek, breathing small kisses into the lightly stubbled skin before whispering: “Truly, what is it with you and always holding the reins of history? Fine. If you won’t budge, I could always just walk the length of the courtyard from your chambers in the dark, bare as the first man, for all of them to see and none to know my colours, save for those you have pressed into my skin.”_

_He soaks up the sudden electricity between them; both of them knowing full well what it takes to make marks that linger for so long. They’ve renewed their claim on each other that way many times over. Meanwhile, his hand has made it down, parting the luscious fabric to get at his prize.  
“I will…”, a sharp inhale breaks into the sentence, ”remember that… for, hmm, the next time I need a distraction.”  
“Hmmm, you do that.”  
He keeps his touch light and teasing, enjoying the whisper of silk against the back of his hand as it moves, belatedly noting the colour and its new significance.   
“Huh. When did you get elevated to bishop?”  
“This,...ha, this morning.”  
“Well, would you look at that. And what shall I call you now, your Excellency?”  
“You, hmmm, may address me as Bertrand d’Alsace, évêque d’Angoulême.”  
“Angoulême, truely? The king certainly didn’t skimp.”  
“It’s not like I, oh… don’t earn my keep. I heard the Musketeers broke up another plot last night.”_

_He keeps the movement of his hand slow and steady, ignoring all the wordless pleas for more, faster, that his touch elicits. Instead, he smiles into the skin of his lover’s neck, answering: “We did, didn’t we? The Captain was most impressed with my fortitude, too, though I feel sometimes he wishes I weren’t quite so quick with my rapier. But this is hardly the right kind of talk for the occasion, no?” He twists his hand unexpectedly and feels Bertrand bite into an unholy curse that makes him laugh in delight at the way they can still undo each other after all these years. “I would rather you tell me who it is you had before you came here…”  
The warm skin under his lips speaks of sated thirst, making his fangs drop. The answer is breathy with arousal in his ear: “Virginie de Montagnon, lady in waiting to the Duchess of…”  
The words are drowned in a gasp that turns into a drawn out moan when he sinks his teeth into flesh, the blood they’re sharing now more sweet and potent for having been filtered through one of their bodies and infused with the unmistakable tang of pleasure. He feels fingers dig bruises into the strong muscle of his shoulder that will be healed as soon as the pleasure lets up, but are cherished all the same. In turn, silk slides luxuriously against the rough pads of his fingers where he tugs their bodies together, easily taming the inescapable reflexes that come with what they’re doing, until his mouth is awash with the taste of ecstasy. _

_Faintly, he hears a woman draw a gasping breath, a stray elbow digging into his ribs painfully. And this is wrong, they are_ alone down here… he thinks as he finds the light changing around him from the flickering shine of a candle to sunlight filtering through threadbare curtains, falling on Winona’s back as she frantically digs through the commode opposite the bed and Raylan feels once more like the world is turning on its axis on him. Before he can get anywhere, trying to put all the conflicting sensory input in order, Winona cries out and his body is up on reflex alone and ready to face the threat. Which turns out to be his own ex-wife’s inability to recall pertinent details until they come back to bite them in the ass. 

~*~

“Look, I just remembered, ok? The bill I took had a torn corner, none of these have a torn corner, so it’s not here.”  
“Are you sure?”  
“Yes, Raylan, I’m goddamned sure. I can’t… this is all messed up…”  
Raylan sighs and scrubs his hand through his hair in frustration.  
“Are you angry?”  
He thinks about it for a moment, finding a strange, impersonal detachment in the place where he’s normally feeling the rage that carries him through life in a low simmer on a good day. The sensation stems from that empty place inside he hasn’t really thought about in years (why does it seem so close to the surface all of a sudden?) and can’t spare time to ponder now. Now, he has to concentrate on the present trouble.   
“No,... no, I’m not angry, but only because I know you’re more sorry already about this than my being angry could ever make you.”

He stretches to grab his jeans from the floor and starts putting them on when Winona asks: “What are you doing?”  
“I’m going to go find out what happened to that bill and I’m going to get it. What else is there to do?”  
She watches him with her lip tucked between her teeth, but thankfully refrains from saying anything else. Winona then takes a deep breath and settles down on the bed, nodding. Raylan in turn sets his thoughts towards figuring out how to best untangle this mess and very carefully doesn’t touch the other one in the back of his mind, the trappings of a recent dream, vivid even now and tethered to the fading curl of arousal deep in his gut. Instead he opts for his oldest and most trusted friend, denial, to help him through another one of these days, dons his hat and walks out the door.

~*~*~

Boyd turns around in his bed, slowly blinking into the dim light filtering through the closed curtains. Again, he can hear Ava puttering around downstairs, preparing for her day and it feels odd to have the same rhythm as her for once. He needs very little sleep all in all, so getting up and staying alert all day won’t be a problem. The reason he doesn’t feel up to going to down to the kitchen and facing Ava is something… someone else. She would read it on his face right now, clear as day and he wouldn’t be able to explain to her what moves him so without falling apart. She’d taken enough time out of her day already the previous morning, leaving late for her shift after he’d flayed himself open on bullets and memories and morality. And she had returned early, to make dinner for herself and then shove him down onto the couch, curling around him like it was possible to aggressively squeeze happiness into his frame. It actually did make him feel better, more centred, lying there with the meditative rhythm of her heart under his ear. But he feels guilty nonetheless, for taking so much, when he has no concept of which direction their relationship is taking – supposed to take? –, and whether there might be expectations stirring on her part for a future he’s not sure he’ll be able to provide. 

After taking a few moments to focus on this most recent memory and to deliberately breathe through the sweet agony of absence, Boyd rolls to the other side of the bed. He gets up to pad over to the little make-shift desk he’s put together out of an old commode that Ava had already stashed in the room and a couple of sheets of plywood. On it lies – as innocuous as its contents are not – a simple notebook bound in black faux-leather. He shouldn’t be looking at it with as much trepidation as he does. He used to keep journals, not since he’s been Boyd Crowder of course, too taken with his own superior intellect and weary of leaving evidence of his scheming anywhere. He learned that lesson the first time his Daddy happened onto a couple of notes composed of bumbling teenage infatuation. 

Bertrand d’Alsace, however, for example, had too many fingers in too many peacock pies not to keep meticulous records (and quite frankly, more need for them, since once you have more than a couple of lifetimes under your belt, they tend to run together). He wonders, for a moment, whether any of his secret document caches have ever been found and serve as sources for enterprising historians or if they’ve all been destroyed by the passage of time. Either way, then, he was much more… tapped into the special brand of justice that is awarded the rich and powerful of every era and thus, less concerned about his ability to welch himself out of a tight spot should it have come to that. As it turns out, some talents stay unique to a person’s character, even mangled through half a dozen of cursed human lives. Maybe one could even consider it evidence of a soul, though that’s a conundrum he’d wrestled with for a millennium, before deciding he needed to let it go, and he doesn’t quite feel up to the task of returning to this particular philosophical argument right now. 

Sitting down and opening the book, Boyd quickly flips through to an empty page as he casts around for a pen in another corner of the desk. He has taken to writing down memories that come back to him. Both as a way to keep them from overwhelming him, as it happened yesterday morning – putting them on the page seems to settle them back in his mind like the smooth, well-worn stones of a mosaic – as well as keeping them in his grasp. To flesh out the remembrance as he tries to recall them, and place them in a time and space. Some of them are more troubling than others of course, the visceral recollection of one of his own deaths chief among them – though writing that one down seems to have blunted the edges considerably, created some distance, perhaps, between the immediacy of sensation and simple, historical fact. But this latest one is giving him trouble, the pen trembling against the paper until he forces himself into writing; the first few letters uncouth and shaky, incongruous with the loping cursive he’s adopted for this memoir. 

He makes himself stay clinical, just a statement of the facts: Versailles, France, 1678, June – maybe? – to keep his mind occupied with the report and not its implications, the loss he feels so keenly as if someone had carved a pound of flesh out of his chest. By his estimate, it’s as good a measure for the weight of a heart as any. There’s nothing more to be done at the moment, after all – they’re lost to each other across a century and a half. And who knows how that fickle curse actually works. Ava’s tale has shone enough light on the situation to make him reasonably certain of what happened to him, to them, but it most definitely didn’t do anything but explain the most basic mechanics, never mind the actual rules. He can’t decide whether it’s a burden or a boon that he has no idea whether he’ll ever get to see his other half again… and whether he would even recognize him, if he did?

A sudden crack startles him out of his thoughts and he looks incredulously at the pen, snapped in half in his hand, ink running down his fingers. Then he curses, scrambling for a tissue, before stains fall on the page. Rubbing at it just spreads the ink around on his skin, funnelling it into the cracks where the dirt of the mountain perpetually lives, though in this moment, he sees nothing but the thorn needle pressing the woad of his first trial into the back of his hand. Suddenly, there is no strength left in him, so he lets his head fall into his hands, feeling the burn behind his lids. He wants nothing more than give into the urge to cry – until he realizes that tears are no longer an expression his body is capable of, at least until it hasn’t been that long since he last fed. 

A sudden, despondent anger clouds his vision, clenching his fist against the pang of hunger and grief all tangled up inside him. He slams it into the desk, feeling the wood creak laboriously, driving a sliver from the untreated surface into the meat of his palm. It’s a sting barely worth noting in the grand scheme of things. But the unexpected pain drags him out of his raging state of mind long enough to look at himself and cringe.

He is Boyd Crowder, damnit, he always lands on his feet, no matter which life he lives and if he wants something, he’ll damn well device a fucking brilliant plan to take it. Curse thrice be damned.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter everyone! I hope you got through the holidays alright and into the new year, which will now apparently feature the actual Demapocalypse, but whatever, this is what escapism is for, amirite?? Pheew, my mind's certainly been racing on this story and work has been puttering along, but I'll keep the extended posting schedule for now. Off we go then... yeah, it's getting SO CLOSE (Close to what, Cat, you, the discerning reader will ask, close to Boyd and Raylan MEETING I will answer with beaming pride, and then promptly sink into the floor, cause, did I think it was going to be roughly 40k until we got there? No, I decidedly did not. I did tag slow burn, though, so.... y'all been warned)

“You’ve been a bad boy.”  
Rachel’s greeting when he walks into the office ratchets Raylan’s heartbeat up to a hundred and twenty in the span of a second, a reaction he barely manages to cover with a distracted “Hmmmmph...?”, and badly too, if the look Rachel throws him in return is anything to go by. Thankfully, she seems to file it under his usual somewhat erratic behaviour and the fact that he most likely has several things to be potentially sorry for at any given time, and just sighs in exasperation: “It’s Wednesday, Raylan!”  
“Yeah, so?”  
“It’s your turn to get coffee.”  
The pronouncement takes him a second to process, but when it does, he face-palms in an utterly humiliating display of obviousness.   
“Awww, shit… I slept through my alarm today, it always throws me off.”  
That’s certainly an understatement considering how his morning went so far: waking up from another graphically vivid and downright unsettling dream – made all the more disturbing by their increasing frequency – to plan the second felony in as many days with his ex-wife. 

In the grand scheme of things, however, he couldn’t have found a better cover for being out of sorts, since it serves to make Rachel’s eyes soften in commiserating sympathy. Even so, it doesn’t exactly erase the glint in them that tells him she knows he’s bullshitting on some level and that she’s letting it go purposefully because Rachel is nice like that. She also collects these instances like chits and has a habit to either use them for leverage, or put them together into a bigger picture at the most inconvenient moments. It makes her a damn fine Marshall, but also a terrible colleague to have to keep something from, and it certainly puts him on notice to tread lightly around her today. 

A bit of brainstorming, - which would have been greatly aided by coffee, damnit – leads him to check the security footage from the bank robbery again, bracing himself at the sight of Winona getting her face stomped on by that douchebag, Carter Hayes, and wishing he’d found a way to shoot that guy after all instead of just laying him out with a proper right hook. But now he’s pretty sure that if that bill is to be found anywhere, it was in Hayes’ pants pocket when he got taken in, which means it’s most likely in evidence among his personal effects at county lock up, where he got processed. 

~*~*~

When Boyd drives up to the mine, he immediately notices the limo parked next to the foreman’s trailer, which is as predictably dust-covered as every other vehicle on the mountain, but otherwise completely incongruous. He clambers out of his truck and has just started making his way over to a couple of miners getting ready to go down to inquire about it, when the latch door of the trailer opens and a woman comes out, striding towards him with decisive steps. Her buxom figure is poured into a power suit and the heavy, well-cut wool of her coat makes her an obvious matching set with the limo. 

“And you must be Boyd Crowder, I’m sure.”  
She aggressively stretches her hand out towards him mid-stride so he can’t help but take it on reflex, noting her firm grip as he answers: “I most certainly am.”  
“I’m Carol Johnson, Executive Vice President of Black Pike Coal.”  
Boyd feels his eyebrows creep up his forehead, mind whirling behind.   
“Is that so? Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”  
“Please, call me Carol.”  
She all but shoulders him out of the way, walking towards the limo, clearly expecting him to follow her.   
“Mr. Crowder, I’ll cut right to the chase. You’ve been a valued and reportedly very competent member of the Black Pike family here in this mine for quite some time now and I would like for you to join our, well, more precisely _my_ security team.”

If Boyd’s eyebrows had any more room on top of his head; well, further up they would go.   
“Ma’am, I’m… very flattered by your consideration and the offer, but before I accept, I have to pose the question of whether you’re aware of my background and how certain… aspects of my personal history might preclude me from being the right man for the job.”  
She opens the car door and smiles at him in a way that manages to look genuinely warm and condescending at the same time.   
“On the contrary, Mr. Crowder, I know all about your background. It is, in fact, the very reason that you are uniquely qualified for my needs.”  
This is what warns him not to underestimate her as a mere corporate hack and whets his appetite for a game he hasn’t _really_ played for hundreds of years. After the last couple of days he’s had, nothing would serve him better than a proper distraction. 

“Do you own a suit?”  
“Ah… no, ma’am, I do not.”  
“Well, that’s alright, I think there’s a Penny’s on the way – wasn’t there?” she shoots at the driver, turning back to Boyd before the man even has the chance to open his mouth, “Come on, get in, Mr. Crowder. We’re on a bit of a clock here.”  
Boyd feels a bit rolled by her energy, but whatever it is that lies on the other end of that drive, it’s bound to be a good match at least. And considering the fact that the limo’s windows are tinted, he certainly won’t have to worry about exposure in the meantime. So he slides into the car behind her and goes along for the ride. 

~*~*~

The trip to County to pick up the evidence turns out to be a colossal waste of time, since Gutterson beat him to the punch. Probably on that coffee run Raylan was supposed to take care of this morning, which just figures. So when Raylan walks back into the office to find Tim sitting at his desk, sipping one of his fancy lattes from a tall to go cup and utterly oblivious to the mess he’s made of Raylan’s day so far, his blood pressure shoots through the roof in an instant. Taking a deep breath to fruitlessly try and counter the pounding in his temples, he centres himself and walks over to Tim’s desk, looking for a subtle way to scope out the Hayes evidence.   
“Hey Gutterson, thanks for getting coffee, I was too turned around this morning to remember. I promise to take your turn next week, alright?”  
Tim just looks at him over the rim of his coffee cup, taking an obnoxiously slow sip in that passive aggressive manner of his and lets Raylan’s fumbling attempt at small talk slide right off a wall of inquisitive silence. Raylan doesn’t have the patience for that kinda attitude on a normal day and today it’s lighting his considerably shorter fuse with more precision than usual. It also suddenly reads in a way that’s suggestive of things Raylan is not at all prepared to deal with at all right now. 

Thankfully the evidence bag is there, lying next to the monitor, but if he pounces on it right away, Tim will know he’s interested in it for some reason, which will lead to questions he can’t afford. Casting around for something to get the conversation going in a different direction, he zeroes in on a set of finger-shaped bruises on Tim’s forearm, gesturing towards them:  
“Hey, what happened there, wild night?”  
He waggles his eyebrows suggestively as Tim turns his arm to look at the marks, not even close to tilting his cup the wrong way as to spill coffee on himself, the bastard, and then meets Raylan’s eyes again to answer with his typically jovial tone: “Yeah, with you.”  
“Say what now?” Raylan blinks and literally feels the blood drain from his face, as he flashes back to the dream he woke up to, the reaction so stark that Tim’s eyes sharpen on him with a much different kind of attention than he needs right now.   
“Yeeeeah…? Day before yesterday, when I first came to tell you about the robbery? You grabbed my arm…”

“I…” Raylan barely remembers that moment, certainly wouldn’t have thought he got Tim with that much force, but the blue and green marks are stark on his skin. He fumbles for a comeback that isn’t ‘hey, I’ve been having these incredibly vivid dreams apparently resulting in some kind of fugue state lately, could you give me a break?’: “I’m sorry, man, I’ve been working out a bit, and I don’t seem to know my own strength anymore. Hey, is that the evidence from the bank robbery?”  
Tim’s eyebrows twitch up at the sudden about face: “Yup, it is.”  
Raylan snatches it up before anything else can go disastrously wrong with this conversation.   
“Let me run that down to the locker then, huh?”  
Tim leans forward a bit in his seat, like he can feel the tension thick enough to cut in the air: “Nah, it’s fine, I got it.”  
“No, no, I was on my way down anyway, it’s no trouble. Call it thanks for taking care of the coffee and an apology for the bruises.”

Raylan tells himself to get out of there before he digs himself any deeper. At least he can pretend the awkward exit is due to embarrassment about having stepped in it again, instead of the clusterfuck that is actually brewing. Meanwhile, Tim looks at him like he’s pretty sure they’re having two different conversations here, but he’s not quite clear what the second one is about. Small favours that Rachel’s not at her desk right now or Raylan would be so busted. Tim on the other hand just shrugs his shoulders, falling back on his much more useful ‘not my business, not my problem’ attitude, taking a sip of his coffee as he waves Raylan off.  
“Sure, if you’re so keen on it. I’ve just finished scanning the bills anyway, so I guess it’s no skin off my back.”  
“Alright then… Wait what? Scanned the bills? What for?”  
“Oh, you know how the FBI’s stepped into the case? They’re insisting on having everything logged in the database, triple like. A pain in the ass I say, the case is closed after all. But what are you gonna do.”

Raylan barely restrains himself from crumbling the evidence bag in his fist as he agrees with him, taking his leave shortly before his face slips. On the elevator, he fumbles the bills out of the bag to check that there’s really one with a torn corner and then regretfully pushes it right back where he found it. Then he takes his hat off to knock his head into the elevator wall at his back a couple of times, cursing this whole day. 

~*~*~

Boyd rolls his shoulders uncomfortably in the cheap suit. It’s scratchy and ill-fitting, which reminds him that he’s going to have to find a proper tailor again, well… first he’ll have to find a way to make much more money, which is always a pain. But it’s not the first time in his long life that he’s built a new fortune – even though it is probably going to be more of a hassle than ever before, what with social security numbers and credit and tax law these days. At least this job that all but fell into his lap comes with a fine package of benefits. Not that he’s counting on doing it long enough to reap many of those. But the signing bonus alone will put them a good way towards covering the remaining amount on Ava’s mortgage, which makes it already worthwhile. The rest is contingent on what Miss Johnson _actually_ expects him to do for her that is not in his job description. 

Right now, she’s showing him to the centre piece of today’s trial, a video of a man who tried to expose the company for the barely legal and certainly immoral work they’re doing – aiming to catch them on camera during a mountaintop removal and getting tragically rolled flat by a boulder in the process.   
“A case such as this would normally settle out of court, but the family wants the notoriety as well as the reward.”  
Which Boyd is inclined to agree on, if not quite with the same outlook on the goal as Ms. Johnson, he presumes. She thinks him a mere opportunist, in for all the money he can grab, but he takes pride in these hills that are his home now and mountaintop removal is a dirty business, the sludge and dirt that’s rolling down the hills into people’s soil and water a silent killer. His fellow miners might be carrying their death with them out of the deep, but at least it’s an honest choice and a fate they meet head on to provide for their families. Still, until he is in a position of power of the sort to do something about it, going along where he must is the name of the game. 

“So, what we’re going to do today is making sure that the judge rules the video as inflammatory and therefore inadmissible.”  
“And you anticipate trouble during the proceedings at court?”  
“Hmmm… we’ll see. If it comes to that, I’m sure you’re resourceful enough to figure us a way out of it. But first and foremost, I’m counting on you to observe carefully whenever my focus is needed elsewhere.”  
That remark is what makes Boyd quite sure that his presence has absolutely nothing to do with the trial at all. There is a bigger game afoot and Carol Johnson is vetting him to be a player. His interest in starting to pull at the levers of power again is definitely piqued. For now though, it serves him best to mime the small time country hick outlaw she believes him to be, a useful idiot for her much grander plans. He certainly has time on his side.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Leaning into the wall next to the backdoor of the salon, Ava lights up a smoke and takes a slow drag, enjoying the first moment of quiet all morning. The scent of tobacco and tar fills the air around her, chasing away the whiff of stale garbage and exhaust that back alleys all over seem to have in common somehow. When her mind has settled somewhat, the hustle and bustle of the salon only faintly audible through the back door, she takes out her cell to check for messages. There’s one missed call from an acquaintance who should know better than to try and reach her during her shift, so Ava feels no obligation to waste her break by calling back right away. And there is a text from Boyd, letting her know that whatever business was coming his way at the mine this morning is taking him to Lexington and will likely keep him there all day. Ava stares at the message for some time, struck at how something so innocuously ordinary could make her feel so overwhelmed all of a sudden. 

Maybe it’s the sheer normalcy of it, considering how – in light of the events the past couple of days – her life seems to have just… gone on.   
She feels like she should be more freaked by it all, but what actually unsettles her more is how very much not freaked out she is. Her brother-in-law, who she’s only just started to develop an even cordial relationship with, turns out to be a biter with centuries on his clock. She finds out that stories she’d always heard, always believed too, but that remained abstract, are very much real and have become her _life_ now. Her hands don’t shake when she puts the cigarette back between her lips, but they feel like they ought to. For some reason, her thoughts drift towards her Nana and she idly wonders what the woman might have had to say about the fact that her granddaughter stumbled into a Gothic tale right out of their very family tradition. Well,… since Nana was a bit of an adventurer in her youth, who had just about as many stories to tell about living through the roaring 20s, the depression and the war than she had spooky tales up her sleeve? She probably would have sat Ava down and made her recount everything to the smallest detail and been delighted by it. A small laugh bubbles out of Ava’s chest at the thought and she has to say the words out loud, even if it’s only into the solitary silence:  
“Holy shit, this is crazy.”

“Preach, sister!”  
Ava jerks around, heart banging fast against her ribs. She’s getting ready to chew out whoever intruded on her moment of contemplation without having the decency to announce themselves when she realizes the door is just swinging closed behind Jeanie, so it must have been coincidence for her to step right into Ava’s outburst. She watches the young woman open her chiselled silver cigarette case, and push one of her hand-rolled smokes into the cigarette holder already between her lips. 

Jeanie reacts to her startled stare with nothing more than a quirk of her lips as she draws a couple of light puffs to get the cigarette going. Ava takes in her outfit of the day, a yellow on black polka dot dress with a too big bow accentuating her plunging sweetheart neckline. Jeanie’s into the rockabilly vibe, from the petticoats all the way up to her well-maintained 50s coif, though the dress is offset by her colourful, full-sleeve tattoos, which definitely do not fit the Stepford mould. A bit of an odd duck, that one, especially around these parts, but nobody does a perm like her, so she’s not wanting for regulars. Ava likes Jeanie, even though they haven’t talked much since she started at the salon, which is why she finds herself not minding a few moments of silence shared with the girl, smoking companionably. But then Jeanie takes a deep drag of her cigarette, pushing the smoke out through her nose in a thick cloud that is nothing like the dainty, ladylike puffs they show in the old movies, before she fully turns to Ava and asks: “So, what’s crazy?”

Ava almost chokes at the question, not even really knowing why, since it’s not exactly a stretch to ask, but for some reason, she finds herself completely unprepared. All the things flit through her head at once, crowding into her mouth with the sudden need to tell _someone_ , when she cannot possibly let them out to a stranger, a mere acquaintance. In the end, she waves her hand in the air in an encompassing gesture and coughs out: “You know… life.” Which – she should be better at this. Jeanie looks at her for a moment, as she flails, all flustered and shit and then throws her head back and laughs. It’s a full-throated belly laugh, ringing with her smoky, pleasant alto that sounds like crooning from a jukebox, Sunday afternoon potlucks and sweltering evenings in the Bayou, where she’s from.   
“Hahaha, yes, not wrong. But… care to be more specific?”  
Ava finds her mouth opening, again, with the need to spill… _something_. She doesn’t know what.   
“I… there’s…”

Nothing more comes out on her ever fastening breath until a hand lands on her arm and everything goes quiet around her for a second.   
“Hey, hey, you’re alright. It’s fine if you don’t wanna talk about it.”  
Jeanie’s voice is as light and jovial as the smile that still stretches her bright red lips, but her eyes are serious and compassionate. The words echo in Ava’s mind as the same thing she said to Boyd yesterday, but contrary to him, she finds that: “… No, I want to, I think, I need…”  
And Jeanie nods, holding up a finger alongside her cig holder to pause the moment as she drags open the back door and yells into the salon: “Emma, we got a situation to deal with back here. Watch that timer on Mrs Grant for me, will you, love?” Jeanie nods at the affirmative sounding back at her before she firmly closes the door and turns back to Ava.  
“So, what do you say, how about we have ourselves a nice little sit down and a chat?”

There’s a small collection of outdoor furniture gathered in a corner. Someone clearly left it there some time ago, though it’s unclear whether that was to get rid of it or whether it was actually supposed to give the employees a chance to sit down on their breaks. Considering how weathered and rickety it is now, the former is more likely than the latter, especially since they don’t normally have enough break time to make use of it. But today, Ava is grateful to have it either way, when Jeanie tugs her over and makes her sit down.   
“Here, you look like you could use this,” Jeanie says, producing a slim hip flask out of one of the myriad pockets in her apron. Ava takes the offering without hesitation and salutes the young woman before taking a swig. Her eyes widen at the smoky, smooth taste of really good bourbon and Jeanie laughs at her as she takes the flask back.  
“What? Didn’t think I’d have the good shit? Look at me,” she gestures up and down before putting the flask to her bright red lips and swallowing back a swig herself, “I got _class_.”

Ava finds herself smiling at the buoyant energy and uses the short lull in conversation to put her thoughts in order. Jeanie doesn’t press – probably because that was exactly her intention – instead she just caps the flask and puts it away _somewhere_ on her person as she waits for Ava to speak.   
Ava takes a deep breath, trying to figure out how to explain what’s moving her without the whole supernatural angle coming into play, but when she opens her mouth, the words actually flow easily.   
“You know I got my brother-in-law living with me for a few months now”, Jeanie just nods along,” and we’d never been close before,… we weren’t that kind of family and to be honest, he was always a bit of an asshole, smooth talker, sure, but a bullshitter all the same. Still is, really,” Ava finds herself chuckling, before getting serious once again.   
“But he had nowhere else to go and I needed help with mortgage so… it seemed like, well, maybe not the sensible thing to do, but… a mutual arrangement to get each other out of a bind. We’d live our lives next to each other, but apart as long as we needed to and then we’d just… go our separate ways.”

Jeanie hums, taking one last drag from her cigarette before she stubs it out against the leg of the chair and flicks it towards the far wall.   
“And?”  
“And… I don’t know. We settled into a routine and then we got comfortable, with each other?”  
“And that’s a bad thing?”  
“No, no, not bad. Just… unexpected.”  
“So, what, you find out you actually like each other and because you didn’t think you would, or should, that makes you crazy?”  
Ava shakes her head, blowing out smoke to the side before twisting her own cigarette into the dirt beside her.   
“That’s not the issue, it…” Ava tries to figure out a way to describe what moves her without going into detail on how she sent Boyd to dispose of three bodies he’d made in just one single minute after covering for him with the law with nothing to go on but his promise to explain. Or how she insisted on digging bullets out of his back with barely a flinch and an unwavering certainty that no harm would come to her. 

“Lately it’s been… Look, Boyd and me both, we’ve seen some shit and been through more…”  
Jeanie nods, since well, the fact that Ava concluded her husband’s last meal with a shotgun chaser isn’t exactly a secret. And the Crowder family name is infamous enough on its own due to the hold they had over this county for the longest time until it ended with Bo’s shoot-out death.   
“…but there’s some stuff from the past come up for him and – I mean, some of it’s from going to war,” Ava deliberately doesn’t specify which one, she isn’t sure herself, “ and some of it... is more complicated than that.”  
Jeanie nods with a knowing look and Ava realizes that she doesn’t have to be more specific at all for the young woman to draw her own conclusions. Thinking about it, her ‘normal’ life doesn’t exactly feel like it when you’re living in it, but shit’s pretty damn crazy on its own without bloody awakenings and supernatural curses thrown into the mix. Maybe that’s why she’s just not that fazed by it all. But Ava tries to keep following her train of thought before veering off because there _is_ something she needs to work through and it’s only just moving into her grasp. 

“There’s … so, things been happening these past few days. And I really needed to make the decision on whether to trust his judgement, and my own, and things got really scary for a moment…”  
At that, Jeanie snaps out of her easy slouch, breaking in with a surprising amount of steel in her voice:  
“Scary, how?”  
“Not in… look, after I got out of my marriage, I didn’t think I’d ever want to let a person that close again, that I’d trust someone in my life this way. But I do. And I don’t even know when it happened. That’s what scares me.”  
Ava realizes in the moment she puts the words together that this is it, this is what’s gotten her all turned around. None of the weird, unimaginable, harrowing things that happened in the past few days. But this.   
What she was prepared to do, has done, not without question, but without hesitation, with a clear head and on instinct. And that it took such world-tilting events to make her see.   
Would she even have noticed otherwise?

“Ah,” says Jeanie in response and leans back into a much more relaxed stance, which makes Ava look up sharply. She’s having an epiphany over here after all. Jeanie chuckles and gives Ava a moment of space by lighting up another smoke before she pins her again with a piercing gaze.   
“And that’s a bad thing? Having that. That trust?”  
“Yes… no. I don’t know.”  
Jeanie looks pensive for a moment and then she reaches over. Ava waits only for a beat before she reaches over and takes the offered hand, feeling strangely grounded by this simple bit of human contact.   
“Has he disappointed you?”  
Instant denial leaps to her lips, the irrational urge to defend her choices by putting him beyond reproach. But that’s a learned response and one of the reasons why she stayed in a torturous marriage for over a decade. And to find her way towards standing up to that, the first thing she did was always telling the truth, even if it was only to herself, at first. She thinks about the closest instances, how Boyd’s inability to change his spots and pass up an opportunity led Kyle and his cronies to her door and all of them into danger, like she knew it would if he didn’t stay on the straight path. How he refused to see her as someone who'd have his back – literally even – which might have cost him more than unnecessary discomfort down the line. How that felt like he didn’t put the same trust in her that she did in him, which hurts something fierce. 

Second step is saying it out loud.   
“Yes.”  
“Hmmm. And did you forgive him? I mean, in your heart of hearts, not only because some foolish societal bastardization of decency says you should?”  
That question stumps Ava for a moment, and not only because of all the big words Ava has to puzzle out, before she understands what Jeanie is getting at. When she takes the time to think about it in earnest, on how she gave Boyd a chance to explain himself, when every other sensible person would have run for the car and told Raylan to floor it on their way out. How she hadn’t let herself get upset enough about the faux nobility bullshit to be put off her goal, but instead had done what she did to make him understand that she wanted to be there for him despite his own misgivings. How she was prepared to wait for him to come to her with his secrets and burdens, even if it took time and might hurt along the way.   
“I did.”  
“Why?”

And that’s the crux of the matter isn’t it?   
With all that she knows about being hurt by the people that are supposed to love you and those who do, about wanting to hurt right back and the blood, sweat and tears she’s had to shed in order to forge her path out of a life that was falling down in shambles around her. Why is this different?  
“I trust my own judgement.”  
The words trail off in a breathy whisper and she has to say them again in her head to understand where they came from and what they mean. It’s not up to others to decide what she does in response to the things life throws at her, even if it is the weirdest shit, or how she deals with it.   
If she feels like standing fast, completely unfazed by it all, she damn well will.   
Who is to tell her otherwise?

A small laugh bubbles out of her, her heart feeling strangely light in the wake of the thought.   
“Ah, there, there. You go, girl.”  
Ava startles at the words, so deep in her own head, she’s all but forgotten Jeanie is there. She watches the smile that crinkles the woman’s eye and makes her look strangely radiant for a moment, before her expression smooths out again.  
“Know your limits though. Just because the people we care about don’t mean to hurt us, doesn’t mean we should let them without consequence, if they do.”  
Ava smiles in response.  
“That I do know how to handle, believe me.”  
Jeanie looks at her for a moment longer, head cocked to the side, before she nods.   
“That I sure do.”

Ava laughs again, a little wetly, she realizes with horror, but Jeanie just smirks at her as she wipes the corner of her eyes.   
“God, you’re good.”  
“What? I did nothing but sit here and watch you put yourself back together.”  
Ava shakes her head at the young woman’s wide-eyed charade and takes a deep breath.   
“Thank you.”  
“De nada. We all just need a moment sometimes.”  
“I… I would ask you not to…”  
Jeanie holds up her hand, stubbing out her cigarette once more.  
“Don’t worry,” she crosses herself and lifts the little medallion around her throat to her lips,” La Madre de Dios sé mi testigo. No one will hear about this from me.”  
Just as Ava is about to nod her silent thanks, the backdoor bangs open and Emma hollers:” Jeanie, that timer went off five minutes ago and Mrs Grant’s squirming like she’s got bees in her bonnet.”  
“Ahhhh, I’m coming, I’m coming, hold your horses.”   
Jeanie gets up, brushing her dress into place primly and turns to Ava: “You going to be alright?”  
Ava sends her off with a wave of her hand.   
“Of course, go on. I’ll be just another minute.”  
And watches her go with a quirk of her lips and a wink. 

~*~*~

When Raylan returns to his motel room during his lunch break, Winona is already there, pacing hurriedly with her hands clenched in front of her. She takes one look at him and stops dead in the middle of the room.   
“You didn’t get it.”  
“Actually I had it in my hand. And then I had to put it right back into the evidence bag.”  
“What? Why?!”  
“Because Tim had already scanned it. If I exchanged it then and the FBI came back to check over the serials, the bill wouldn’t have matched and we’d have a much bigger mess on our hands.”  
Winona resumes pacing with the nail of her thumb caught between her teeth, a habit she had kicked with great difficulty not that long after they were first married. He sets his hands lightly on her shoulders to still her.   
“Winona, it’s one bill. The worst that can happen is that it pops in the secret service database connected to the old case, they’ll search the evidence locker until they find the rest of the cash and once that’s accounted for, I doubt it’ll go much further. Even if they trace it back to you, you’ll probably just get a fine and a reprimand. They don’t send people to jail over things like this. We might have to be a bit creative with them asking questions, but... what? What is it?”  
“I… there’s going to be a problem with that.”  
“With what?”  
“Them finding the rest of the cash.”

Winona untangles herself to step over to the bed and tug a brown leather bag out from under it. Raylan already has a bad feeling about it and when she opens the bag to reveal a mess of haphazardly bundled bills, his stomach just sinks.   
“That really what I think it is?”  
He sees a snarky reply hop onto Winona’s tongue, but thankfully she bites down on it, because he doesn’t think a serious blow out would have been averted otherwise. Raylan sighs and scrubs his hands through his hair.   
“I’m going to take it back, Raylan, that’s why I brought it. I swear, I’ll fix it.”  
“Why would you take it in the first place? No, you know what, you don’t need to answer that. But Christ, why did you not tell me this morning?”

Winona looks at him with her lips tugged between her teeth, hugging herself as she glances down at the bag with quiet loathing.   
“Cause I knew you’d look at me like you’re doing now, Raylan. And I didn’t want you to think I was that kinda person.”  
“Winona… everyone is that kinda person, under the right circumstances. But this changes the stakes.”  
“I know, but I’ll take care of it, like I said.”  
“I can’t let you do that alone.”  
“I’m not asking you to get involved any more than you already are. I screwed up, I should be…”  
“No, what I mean is, I literally cannot let you do it alone. That big shot wrongful death trial is starting today, remember? They’ll have extra security at the courthouse while that’s going on, and everyone entering will have to go through, detectors, bag scans, the works.”

He sees it hit Winona after barely a second.   
“I can’t smuggle that much cash in with me with that kind of security.”  
“Nope. There’s only one way to get this inside the courthouse. I gotta take it in through the Marshalls’ entrance, hand it off once you’re inside.”  
“But that means if I’m caught, you’ll be on CCTV taking the bag inside,... it’ll fall back on you!”  
“Yeah, it will.”  
“I… I can’t…”  
“It’s the only way.”  
He watches the fight go out of Winona and thanks all there is to hear him.   
“Now, I can’t quite believe it’s actually me saying this, but how about we sit down and start this next leg of the journey with a plan, so you don’t get caught?”

~*~*~ 

Boyd is well aware that it might look ridiculous from the outside, but he’s never been one to forgo the dramatics, so he does his best impersonation of a bodyguard when they arrive at the courthouse in Lexington. Shuffling Ms. Johnson in from a side street to avoid the picketing crowd protesting corrupt Coal out front goes without a hitch. They go in via a more inconspicuous entrance and get funnelled towards a less crowded security line. Once he sees the full scale of it, metal detectors and all, he finds himself sending another silent thanks towards Ava for her tenacity, glad that there are no more lead projectiles rattling around in his body. That would have been awkward to explain. It’s only once they made the way through into the courthouse proper that he starts seeing the silver stars everywhere, realizing the Marshalls’ office is in the building as well – and there’s a better than average chance that Raylan will be, too.

As if summoned by the thought, he actually hears the cadence of a familiar heart, beating rapidly and anxious. It takes all his focus in the moment not to break away and run towards it, though what that would accomplish, he’s not quite sure. Whatever it is that has Raylan on edge, chances are, Boyd’s presence would not be a soothing influence for his troubles. He drags his senses away and back to the task at hand with considerable effort. What breaks open again in that instance, however, is the question of how and why he’s so attuned to Raylan in the first place. Between trying to find a way to explain everything to Ava, figuring out bits and pieces with her help, and working through the aftermath of these very striking remembrances in the past couple of days, this oddity had fallen to the wayside. He knows Raylan’s heart – that much is true, as much as the fact that he shouldn’t, couldn’t. Yet, given that it is rather unlikely their paths will cross even though they are in the same building, Boyd doubts he’ll come any closer to finding the answer to that question today. Still, he feels that it is not an investigation he ought to leave unattended for much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA... psych! But they have made it into the same building now, at least. LOL and I promise, they will meet each other in the next chapter and there's going to be some angst to go along with it. And Ava had a much needed moment, I think, cause... ya know, shit IS kinda crazy, once you sit down and think about it. How do y'all like Jeanie? I love her so much, but I'm biased, so... Anyway, that's it from me today, hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to blabber on, but I'm just going to start this off with a disclaimer about something that is true for all canon re-writes but especially for this chapter. I've tried to keep the balance on taking scenes and dialogue wholesale from the show, choosing different perspectives and paraphrasing. But for obvious reasons, the scene that is central to this chapter is going to be very, very close to the original (because that was acting and directing to perfection and you don't mess with perfection) so you will likely recognize a lot of blocking and dialogue for which I can take absolutely no credit and have to give it all to the show's fantastic writers. I still hope I put enough of my own spin on it to make it interesting. OK, folks, buckle up!

Raylan walks into the Marshalls’ office and sits down at his desk, fingers splayed pensively against his jaw, giving the impression of a lawman deep in the work of thought to anyone who might be looking. Truthfully, he’s holding his breath to keep a bout of relieved laughter from rising past his throat. It sits in his belly like a stone, uncomfortable and unearned. The hand-off might have gone without a hitch, Winona going through security and picking up the gym bag from where he set it down in a quiet corner of the courthouse just seconds earlier. But until she manages to get the money down into evidence and squared away, they’re far from in the clear. Still, Raylan can’t switch off the instinctual euphoria that comes with the first leg of the plan working out with no one the wiser.  
“Ah, Raylan, there you are. Judge Reardon wants to see you in chambers,” Art tells Raylan as he walks out of his office, donning his jacket, clearly on the way out.  
“What? What does he want with me?”  
The Chief slows down and tilts his head at him in that peculiar way of his that communicates so many different things. At the moment, it says ‘Do I _look_ like your secretary?’ and with an “I imagine that is going to come up in conversation when he sees you in chambers,” thrown over his shoulder, he’s out the door. 

Raylan doesn’t give himself time to worry about what the eccentric judge might want him for, even though the premature feeling of accomplishment turns into ice in his stomach. The visit to the judge’s chambers turns out to be both more and less worrisome. On the one hand, Winona is there, and so is the gym bag – apparently she’d been intercepted by the judge on her way to put the money where it was supposed to go. Though now that he knows about it, he might be able to run more interference. On the other hand, the judge has only called him in to do another security sweep in the courtroom, because apparently, saving his life on more than one occasion makes Raylan his most trusted Federal and somehow personally responsible to keep it that way. Can’t argue with the logic from Reardon’s point of view. 

Raylan blames it on his preoccupation with the question of how to put the money back to where Winona found it (or down the incinerator shoot, to be honest, he’s not really picky anymore) that it takes him a couple of seconds to process what he sees upon entering the courtroom. And even then, he honestly has no idea what to do with Boyd Crowder sitting in the first row of the pews for the public, looking somehow like his usual impishly prim self – despite wearing an ill-fitting suit of all things – and at the same time deathly pale, like he’s seen a ghost.  
“Boyd?”  
The man blinks for a moment before visibly catching himself with a “Hello Raylan.”  
“What are you doing here?” Raylan instantly feels his confusion war with the instinctual wariness that has coloured his every interaction with Boyd ever since he’s been back in Kentucky. 

Halfway into his question, the door opens and the silhouette walking in from the back turns into an attractive, self-assured woman in business attire who answers before Boyd can so much as open his mouth: “Well, we were going to wait on the bench outside, but then the plaintiff’s family is there too and everyone thought we would be better off waiting in here. I hope we’re not in your way…?”  
“Raylan, this is Carol Johnson, she works for Black Pike Coal, the defendant in the big civil case before the court this morning,” the words coming out of his mouth, the gestures, his demeanour tell Raylan on the surface that this is in fact Boyd Crowder in front of him, now that he seems to have recovered. But there’s still something… off about him. Raylan feels his heart speed up on its own accord, like an instinct deeply ingrained inside him has been tripped into fight or flight and he can’t bring himself to let Boyd out of his sight, as the man continues: “Miss Johnson, this is Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens.”

“It’s a pleasure,” she replies and he can tell by the sweep of her eyes downward and up again along his body that she means it in more ways than one. It’s nothing out of the ordinary and normally he would act on or dismiss the silent offer at his leisure, appreciating it either way. But in this instant it somehow feels grubby and vulgar, like she’s stepping on someone else’s turf, an invisible boundary that sprung up in the span of seconds while he wasn’t looking. He barely manages a “Likewise.” in return before turning back to Boyd, who doesn’t help one bit. Instead he looks back with a glint in his eye that speaks to an intimate knowledge of what’s going through Raylan’s head right now and an equal distaste for the matter. Raylan decides he isn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole, opting to focus instead on the task at hand, which is figuring out what’s going on.  
“Ma’am, forgive me if I was rude,… I’ve been asked to make sure the courthouse is secure. So, again, Boyd, what are _you_ doing here?”  
“Boyd is part of my security team.”

That actually draws him up short, moved to throw an incredulous look over at Boyd, who just inclines his head a fraction. “Security?” That question Boyd just answers with a mere twitch of his lips, and a smug air of satisfaction at Raylan’s surprise. It opens a line between them, the kind of wordless exchange that has always worked, no matter how at odds they were with each other, a resonance that goes as deep as the mineshaft that once threatened to cave in on their heads. It’s a strange thing to think about at this moment and Raylan tries to cover his sudden unease with a quip: “I like the suit.” Which Boyd answers by raising his eyebrows to new heights, keeping himself very obviously still, as not to fidget in the offending garment. 

Raylan shakes his head lightly, and then turns back to actually do his job, before feeling compelled to turn around and address Carol Johnson once more before he gets on with it, a point of professional pride: “You are aware, ma’am, that the Marshall service provides courthouse security for all federal proceedings here, right?”  
She broadens her earlier pout into a sunny, plastic smile and replies: “I like having one of my own to watch my back.”  
Which is just about the funniest thing he’s heard all day, considering. But it’s not his business to tell her how to steer her ship, so he just shakes his head lightly and walks up to the dais, switching on his flashlight to check the underside of the judge’s desk for any suspicious contraptions, exposed wires, weird packages. Nothing looks out of place. And yet, the hair on the back of his neck suddenly stands on end, making him look up from behind the judge’s desk. 

Turns out, Boyd has slunk out of the pews and is now peering at him over the polished wood.  
“Raylan.”  
The unique lilt with which Boyd says his name sends a shiver down his spine. It carries a strange note that is both proprietary and longing and it touches something inside him Raylan hasn’t consciously felt in a long, long time. A ragged edge beneath his breastbone, an emptiness that has only ever come close to finding its missing piece in one instance of his life, forever ground in with the memory of burning coal dust and terror. It makes him eye Boyd warily as he bows nearer and speaks in hushed tones.  
“Raylan, far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, and I realize that I’m rather very new to the whole security gig. But I have spent a considerable time hiding explosives in my day, so I feel it’s my obligation to offer any assistance you presume appropriate.”

Raylan doesn’t really want to think about Boyd’s angle any more than he absolutely has to. So to head him off before he can try and smooth talk himself into more of Raylan’s good graces, he lifts his flashlight right into Boyd’s face, watching him flinch away bodily from the bright light with a kernel of petty satisfaction popping in his belly.  
“You got any explosives on you right now?”  
Boyd answers with a long suffering sigh: “Do you want to pat me down?”  
His eyes, when Raylan meets them again are… strange, an all but luminescent glow pulsing in them with a single-minded intensity and communicating somehow that there is something entirely different on offer than what Boyd is saying out loud. They’ve had this conversation before, though Boyd was much clumsier then, and perhaps also more confused about his intentions. There is no mistaking the heat in his gaze at this moment, even if it is tempered with a different flavour of quiet desperation. The prospect of it scared Raylan then, in that moment in front of the mine, when he felt the bones of his wrist grind in a young man’s too strong grip and he wasn’t quite sure what Boyd was asking.  
And it scares him now. 

“Boyd, I think I’m good here. Why don’t you back off and sit down while I finish up?”  
He doesn’t mean to say it unkindly and doesn’t think it comes out that way. But the pain in Boyd’s face, even if it’s only there for an instant before it gets covered by a mask of jovial resignation, it cuts deep. Deep enough that Raylan wonders if he made the wrong choice. Before he can waver from his decision, however, Boyd just inclines his head with that infuriating half grin of his and turns to put some distance between them, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. With the moment broken, Raylan finds himself staring helplessly at his back, feeling a strange wistfulness and unsure of what to make of the whole exchange. 

He doesn’t have long to think about it, though, before Carol Johnson makes her way across, pointing her finger between them.  
“So, you two knew each other, growing up?”  
This time Raylan doesn’t get the chance to say anything before Boyd answers her question, still walking towards the pews.  
“Why, yes, we worked in the mine together at the age of nineteen, before Raylan went off to college and the Marshall’s and I went off to Kuwait.”  
The way he says it, the careful, crisp enunciation, carries an undercurrent of mortar-scorched sand and resentment that gives Raylan pause. Maybe he should have realized sooner, but until this moment, he really had no notion of how his leaving – without saying goodbye (he couldn’t have, he couldn’t or he might not have gone) – had hurt Boyd back in the day. And how much of that carried over into their interactions now.  
But he couldn’t have stayed and Boyd wouldn’t have gone, so it’s a moot point, isn’t it?

Carol Johnson just prattles on, seemingly unaware of the mounting tension in the room and the scabs she is picking at.  
“And when did you guys meet up again? Wasn’t it right around the time he shot you in the chest?”  
She turns between them both with a flourish, as if she’s looking to be applauded for the performance, with the small smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth telling Raylan in no uncertain terms that she set up the exchange with calculated deliberation, probably from the moment Boyd introduced him in the first place. But his attention is all on Boyd, who half turns to shoot a look at her over his shoulder that she is going to ignore at her own peril.  
“Shortly before that. See, Raylan, Miss Johnson has recently become acquainted with some parts of my past.”  
The loathing is palpable and disproportionate, as if Boyd is less incensed about the angle she’s taking than the fact that she’s trying to play this game at all in such an obvious fashion. He throws Raylan a look and raises an eyebrow, silently complaining to Raylan about what he has to put up with and it’s all he can do to keep his face pleasantly professional. That woman has invited the fox into her hen house and she’s going to lose feathers for it. 

“Is that so?” Raylan answers into the awkwardly long pause, prompting Miss Johnson to sidle closer to him again, leaning in in a faux conspiratorial fashion, as if Boyd isn’t perfectly able to hear every word in the empty courtroom.  
“It’s true. Now, Marshall Givens, given how long you two have been acquainted, you must know Mr. Crowder very well. The kind of man he is?”  
“I suppose so.”  
Raylan aborts a movement to adjust his hat, remembering in the last second he isn’t wearing it and opts to settle his hands on his hips instead, signalling her with a raised eyebrow that he’s not following where she is going and it’s trying his patience.  
“So, if I were to ask you, whether I could trust Mr Crowder to have my back, what would you say?””  
“Ma’am…”  
He wants to air out his exasperation at the whole display by telling her where to shove it, he really does. But before he can stomp on the impulse and feed her inconsequential platitudes instead, he turns to lock eyes with Boyd, and is arrested by his gaze, which is alight with a ferocious hunger as well as the same quiet kind of desperation he showed earlier… as if what Raylan says next was fit to make Boyd, or break him. And for all that has passed between them, that aching place in his chest doesn’t permit him to do the latter. 

What remains then, is honesty. So, after a moment of thought, Raylan doesn’t let his voice waver, nor his eyes stray from Boyd’s face as he answers Ms Johnson’s inquiry:  
“Ma’am, I am an officer of the law, in a court of law – and while not sworn in, I feel compelled to tell the truth,” he watches Boyd lean unconsciously forward, feeling his attention almost like a touch on his body and rushes on: “The truth is… I don’t know if you can trust Boyd. He has tried to kill me, and I have shot and imprisoned him. And I wouldn’t be surprised if our paths were to cross again in such a manner. But he has had my back on two occasions. Once, the last day I was in the mine,” he wonders if Boyd can also still taste the powdered gravel in his lungs sometimes, “and once more, in a firefight, not so long ago.”  
He holds Boyd’s eyes, cataloguing every reaction that flits across his face at his words even though he can’t decipher them all, before Carol Johnson walks in between them, breaking the spell, her eyes darting from one man to the other with an impish smile.  
“My, sounds like a love story.”

~*~*~

The words hang in the still air of the courtroom like a bell struck by lightning and it’s all Boyd can do not to fly over the wooden rails and tear Carol Johnson’s throat open. Instead, he just sits there, all quiet like, with the fingers of his left hand digging into his thigh to the point of bruising bone. If he reached out with the fury pounding in the back of his head, he could crush Carol’s mind to pulp and not break a sweat. But she has no idea what she is really talking about, laying open that nerve in her stumbling around and it would lead him nowhere good to lose himself right now. Besides, it’s not actually her choice of words that are the root of his agony, this vast, cutting pain. It’s the way Raylan shoots him a look of startled disbelief, inviting Boyd to join in commiseration over this foolish woman’s ideas.  
Like the notion is so ridiculous, it would never even have crossed his mind.  
Like he has no earthly idea who he is to Boyd, and what. 

In that frozen moment in time, he is back, walking into the building earlier to the tune of Raylan’s heartbeat tolling in his ears, when he had no concept of how the answer to that particular mystery would find him in such a swift and devastating manner. But he knows now, knew from the moment Raylan walked into the room, before their eyes even met. The same shade he last recognized 150 years ago on a Civil War battlefield, even though the features framing them are so very different, much older than he ever had the chance to see them before. Right here, in the present, Raylan’s gait might be infused with the swagger of Cowboy boots, his voice carrying the unmistakable lilt of their Appalachian brogue. But underneath, there is the steely grace of a warrior used to handling sword and spear for centuries; buried in the melody of his sentences the whorl of their Celtic mother tongue, which they fell into whenever they were alone or didn’t want anyone who might overhear to understand what they were saying. In retrospect, Boyd probably shouldn’t have been so surprised, maybe, but in those precious seconds before Raylan notices him after he’s stepped into the courtroom, it’s all he can do to catch his breath and brace himself to keep from falling apart right there. 

And it’s a good thing he does, since Raylan reacts to him predictably, with no one but Boyd Crowder as a frame of reference in his mind: weary, combative and yet falling back into their quasi friendly banter – both out loud and on that silent frequency they’ve always seemed to have and which, Boyd only now realizes, is rooted in a hundred lifetimes of knowing each other. This moment should have been theirs alone, one-sided as it is, Boyd’s to cherish the bittersweet ache of finding so close what he’d feared lost forever, even if it couldn’t be further from his grasp. There’s one instant that wavers between them, when Boyd can’t bar himself from coming closer and the recent past blurs into the present, their last exchange in front of the mine. He wonders, if Raylan felt – then and now – that there was something more connecting them than juvenile friendship and the brotherhood of the deep. But just like the last time, Raylan draws back, rejects what Boyd puts silently on offer and he feels it like a blow to the soul he was no longer sure he had. 

He shoves the pain away, turning his back to Raylan even though he doesn’t want to let him out of his sight for at least another century. Instead he puts up a brave face and dutifully swats the balls back into Carol Johnson’s court, as she keeps stepping in on their moment, unaware that she’s playing checkers in his game of three dimensional chess for an audience of one. And Raylan… Raylan looks like he’s playing whack-a-mole, scouring the entire exchange for answers to questions he doesn’t know to ask. And then Carol Johnson has the audacity to ask Raylan to name the essence of the man he only knows to be Boyd Crowder and the floor falls out from underneath him. The memory is crystallized in amber, him sitting at rapt attention, no idea what his face reveals, but something there makes Raylan stop and think for a moment before answering. There’s an absent awareness that he stops breathing as Raylan speaks, lays down his judgement and even though he can go for a long time without air, in this moment, his head feels fuzzy, stuffed with cotton, as if his mind is insulating itself against the blow of knowledge. 

And then, instead of that blow, Raylan gives him more than he could have asked or hoped for. It’s not a ringing endorsement by a long shot, which is fair enough. It’s just… honesty. The truth as Raylan knows it, as told by his steady, calm heartbeat accompanying his words and for a moment, Boyd doesn’t know what to do with that, except be thrown again through the whole rollercoaster of the past five minutes on the coat tails of Carol Johnson’s interjection. In the end, however, he can do nothing more than watch Raylan leave without an answer to her statement, looking puzzled and discomfited and altogether out of patience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHEeeeesh. Here we are. I'm so much further down the line already, I barely remembered writing this chapter until I got back to prepping it for posting and guys, I was NOT prepared for how deeply it would hit me. Jeeeezus. Those two. I'm going to ride that wave into editing chapter 21 (sexitimes!) cause that hurt is my ambrosia. But damn.  
> *Shakes her fangirl self* ok, on another note, some of you might already have noticed that I changed the chapter count. I've battled with myself over it, because I didn't to waffle and it might be a bit of an overestimation, but... while I know exactly where I'm going and the beats of the story over all haven't changed, I just keep hitting natural chapter breaks in much earlier places than my outline suggests. So this is more of a precaution, because I know myself. That said, I can't believe the _journey_ this story has already taken me on. Wow. Thanks for being there with me, all my regular readers :).


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, after Raylan and Boyd's big meeting last time, now back to Ava and one of my favorite exchanges in the story so far, which I hope will have as much an impact on you guys reading it than it had on me writing it. This story, man, is kicking my ass (mostly in a good way). I figured some shit out last week on how to get where we'll be going in the end, but that still needs to marinate. But that is as of right now, is future!Cat's problem. LOL, for the moment, I bid you to enjoy the new chapter. Oh, and as of the posting of this chapter, I have officially surpassed 400k of words posted on AO3, I am shook. Anyway, Hugs and Kisses!

For Boyd, the rest of the day passes in somewhat of a haze. Between the judge throwing the video out on behalf of the defendant mining company, a fake bomb threat and a real sniper, he doesn’t get to talk to Raylan a whole lot more than their usual chitchat in the margins of vaguely life-threatening situations.  
What would he even say to Raylan, if he had the chance: You are the long lost love of my eternal life? Raylan might shoot him again. Or have him committed. Or laugh.  
Boyd can’t decide which would be the worst.  
And it wouldn’t be the right thing to say anyway, since anything as sentimental as love is hardly a fitting description for it, when what lies between them is so much more, goes so much deeper.  
They are carved from the same stone. 

So, it is just as well that the whirlwind of events necessitates Boyd to take that discovery, put it in a box at the very back of his conscious mind and lock it down tight. He needs to regroup and come up with a plan of action. He… needs to go home, to Ava, and rest for a bit. It doesn’t help that Carol Johnson finally reveals what she truly wants him for in the car on their way back. Apparently, Mags Bennet has been stepping on her actual plans – buying certain strips of land out from under her – which Boyd, among other things, is supposed to have her reconsider, and damn the consequences. Running circles around this corporate foil is something he could be doing in his sleep, but Mags Bennet is a horse of a much different colour. Not that he hadn’t anticipated going up against her at some point, once he made the decision to stake out a new territory. 

Anyone trying to make a name for themselves in their neck of the woods is going to have to carve it out of the Bennet business, especially since Mags gleefully took over much of his own family’s turf in the wake of Bo’s untimely end. But going up against her in this state of the game is certainly not something he would have chosen, with no backing and no resources except for a boss who would discard him as so much hillbilly trash in the blink of an eye if it came down to it. But if this endeavour Johnson pursues is running afoul of the Bennets, it’s certainly going to be a bigger deal than meets the eye and consequently a bigger score. If nothing else, it’s his chance to prove he’s ready to get down and dirty again with those hundreds of years of political intrigue under his belt. And if he can turn around the whole deal to his side of the ledger, it will certainly make the perfect stepping stone to establish a territory on. 

Boyd tightens his grip on the dossier Johnson had given him right before they dropped him off back at the mine. He plans to study it very thoroughly the first chance he gets, no time to waste figuring out the endgame here, so he can make his own moves ahead of time. But finally, stepping onto the porch, hearing Ava puttering around in the kitchen, a swaying kind of exhaustion hits him and he realizes that it’s been three and a half days since he drained Marcus and he’s _hungry_.  
There’s no time to hunt and he wouldn’t know where to start to be honest, except loping into the woods to go for another doe, which makes a knot of revulsion tighten in his stomach.  
God, but he hates venison. 

But the only other option around is Ava – which is inconceivable on principle – or some poor schmuck on the road, which is a basket of bad ideas as long as he can’t be sure to stay in control and drink without killing anybody. Vanishing three corpses within the week is quite enough of that; thank you very much. Before he can push his weary body into moving one way or the other, however, the door opens. Ava evidently heard the car and was wondering what was taking him so long coming in. She stands there, shoulder pressed into the doorjamb and watches him with a raised eyebrow.  
“Are you coming in?”  
He feels himself gravitating towards her at once, her scent, her pulse and catches himself just before he drops his fangs.  
“Ava…”

She cuts him off before he can finish the thought, though the coiled tension evident in her body belies her pretend nonchalance.  
“Let’s try that again, then. Boyd, get your ass into the house, now.”  
If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she was putting more than human emphasis on her words, and he tries feebly to stay strong: “Ava… I can’t.”  
It’s difficult to talk to her without a push of his own behind it, but for some reason, her eyes soften and she steps closer, laying her hand on his neck, unconcerned, as if she isn’t at all aware that the thud of her heart alone is a fit enough temptation to make him turn his head and rip into skin and bone. Yet, she just stands there, touching him, as if she trusts him not to, no matter how starved he might be. Just like she fearlessly bullied him into letting her take care of those bullets in his back, without hesitation or consideration for the fact that she might be getting herself in danger. The realization pulls the rug out from under him and before he knows it, she has tugged her hand closer, leading him through the door and into the kitchen. 

When she presses him to sit down, his eyes fall immediately to the table, more precisely the item right in front of him. A simple thermos, from the look of it. He opens his mouth to ask and then doesn’t need to anymore, fangs dropping of their own accord due to the shivery, metallic scent wafting from it. He turns his head away, embarrassed for some reason to have Ava see that instinctive, animalistic reaction from him. She just squeezes his neck lightly and says: “Go on.”  
He makes himself wait until she steps away towards the oven where a meal’s keeping warm that’s clearly meant for her, holding out with a prideful stubbornness and the need to pretend his control is better than it very clearly is. But once her touch leaves his skin, there’s no holds barred; he fumbles off the cap and chugs down the contents of the flask with wild abandon.

After the first rush of thirst is quelled, he has to stifle a grimace at the taste, the distinct tang of blood that has been drained from a newly dead host instead of a live one instantly evident. It’s not unlike wine just before it fully sours into vinegar – it remembers its original palate, but underneath, acid is forming. Ava, unfortunately, turns just in time to catch him frowning, and with a nervous edge in her voice, she asks:  
“Is it not working?”  
Boyd shakes his head, waving off her concern.  
“Oh, it’s not poisonous alright, just… dead things. The taste is – unpleasant. But needs must.”  
Ava comes back over with a coffee cradled in her hands and sits at the table across from him, humming lightly. He regards her for a moment, swallowing around a sudden lump in his throat and reaches out over the table, squeezing her hand when she slides her fingers into his.  
“Ava… thank you.”

She regards him over the rim of her cup before answering: “What for?”  
He thinks back over the events of the past few days, on what she’s seen, what she’s done in response and can’t take it.  
“For being here, taking me in, taking… care. In ways I can’t even begin to repay.”  
“Hmm,…” she squeezes his hand back one last time before letting go, “Like I said, that’s what you do for family, ain’t it?”  
Boyd stares at her, lost for words for a moment, wondering how she can claim him like that after all the wrong done to her, most by his own relations. But then he realizes that it must be just as much for her own benefit, the everlasting drive of living, social creatures not to be alone in this world. Or two hurting, lost souls taking solace. He is too tired and aching to truly question it, which is why he decides to accept his good fortune without reservation for once.  
“Yes, that is what you do. So… where in the world did you come up with a pint of fresh pig’s blood if you don’t mind me asking?”

Boyd knows the answer as soon as he asks the question, the pieces falling into place in his mind and he doesn’t know whether he should kiss Ava for her clever thinking or shake her for taking a risk she could in no way anticipate the repercussions of down the line.  
“I went up to Noble’s Holler after my shift today, bought barbecue and told Limehouse I wanted to try my hand at making blood pudding from scratch.”  
“And he believed that?”  
Ava tilts her head at him with a raised eyebrow that says ‘What do you think?’  
Boyd taps his finger against the thermos, taking the last swig inside.  
“He’ll figure it out.”  
“It’s fine. Limehouse is not one to pry into other people’s business as long as you steer clear of the holler.”  
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. Ellstin Limehouse makes it his business to know everyone else’s so he can decide where and when it best suits him to use that information. Do you think all the local outfits bank with him because it’s convenient? No, it’s just that he is very deliberate and conservative with his meddling – so that you don’t even notice it until it’s too late.”  
“Does it matter, if you get what you need in the long run?”

Boyd rubs his chin thoughtfully, considering. It is certainly time to reach out and mend fences if he plans to set bigger things in motion. And why not start with Noble’s Holler, since Limehouse is going to be both the easiest pitch and the hardest sell. He needs to figure out a reliable way to get sustenance that doesn’t involve disappearing people on a regular basis and he can’t put that burden on Ava indefinitely. And if he is going to go up against Mags Bennet, he’ll need support from somewhere, even if it is just from a tacit ally committed not to strike while his back is turned. Limehouse might have fashioned himself the reputation of a bit of neutral territory in the intricate clockworks of Eastern Kentucky, but he is by no means above taking sides. He’s just a bit more subtle about it than most.  
“Alright, we’ll see about currying favour with Noble’s Holler sometime soon. I know you trust him and have spent time there. At any rate, if I can manage a deal with Limehouse, we will be a good step closer.”

Ava regards him with a raised eyebrow. “Closer to what, exactly?”  
“Growing a proper territory.”  
“You want to take control of Harlan?” Her other eyebrow joins the first.  
“Oh no, I’m talking about Eastern Kentucky.”  
“All of it?”  
“Sure. You see, our kind, whenever we decide to settle down somewhere for any length of time, we tend to establish a… sphere of influence, if you will. Where we are in control, secure from interference.”  
He tilts his head at Ava’s incredulous expression. “You don’t believe me?”  
“Oh no, of course I do. But how would you even accomplish that?”  
“By any means necessary.”

He blames his moment of inattention on exhaustion, the distractions of the day and the fact that their journey through the events of the past week have been so much smooth sailing against all odds. Too much, as it turns out. Boyd knows he made a mistake the moment the words leave his lips. But it’s too late to take them back, keep them from sucking all the familial warmth out of the room, leaving Ava’s body to go rigid across from him, her hands clasped together in a tight knot.  
He scrambles to placate her as quickly as he can: “Which are almost entirely legitimate at the moment, I can assure you.”  
But the damage is done – she eyes him with open suspicion before asking: “And how is that?”  
“Because I got myself a promotion at the company.”  
That captures her attention, and Boyd proceeds to tell her about his day, the meeting with Carol Johnson in the morning, the trial; the commotion afterwards. He considers telling her about Raylan, desperate for some comfort to soothe the raw hurt inside his chest, but decides against it for two reasons. One, it means explaining a lot of things about his life before, well before… that he’s more or less purposefully alluded to until now. But that particular can of worms is so full, he doesn’t know what would happen if he tried to open it in his current state of mind. Two, it is… he’s not quite sure how Ava feels about Raylan these days to be honest. They’ve been going their separate ways for quite some time now and it doesn’t _look_ like Ava’s any worse for wear over it, but looks can be deceiving. Consequently, Boyd only mentions the encounter with Raylan in passing before revealing the information Carol Johnson had given him on their drive back, which is a much more pressing concern anyway. 

“So… she wants you as a go between with the locals, negotiating these land sales on her behalf?”  
“Yes, I believe so.”  
“But you’re not exactly sure what she wants the land for?”  
“That is what we need to figure out before the deed is done. Unfortunately, I think she has not yet given me information on all the properties she’s got her eye on.”  
Ava chews her lip thoughtfully and then fixes him with a hard stare.  
“You’re angling to screw them over, that Johnson woman, the mining company?”  
“I plan to find a point of leverage from the inside and take full advantage of the opportunities that present themselves accordingly.”  
He finds himself charmed by the small smile she can’t stifle in response, proving once again that Ava’s much less averse to sticking it to the man than towards outright highway robbery. 

Once again, the distraction opens him up for the counter though.  
“So, what else?”  
“Excuse me?”  
“What else is going on with this scheme that you’re worried you can’t tell me about?”  
Boyd gapes at her for a moment, but then relents, because if they’re going to do this, Ava needs to know what she needs to know.  
“It seems that Ms. Johnson is not the only interested party – we are racing against another buyer, a local interest and Ms. Johnson counts on me to persuade the good people of Harlan to sell to her first.”  
Ava gets a shrewd look on her face, sliding right underneath his obfuscation to put things together more quickly than he can dodge her and it’s magnificent to watch. Or it would be, if it didn’t lead him onto such very thin ice.  
“And how does Ms. Johnson expect that kinda persuasion to work?”  
“…by any means necessary.”

Boyd looks Ava square in the eye and lets her see all he’s anticipating to _be_ necessary and all that he is prepared to do, opening himself up once again to her choice. He’s not quite sure what he’ll do if she puts her foot down again about his outlaw ways.  
But of course she veers off in a completely different, much more treacherous direction.  
“And who is this other party?”  
Ava’s tone indicates she hasn’t missed his deliberate omission and has a suspicion at least, which is not surprising. The list is rather short after all. Still, Boyd employs an iron will to keep from tensing for a fight as he answers:  
“Mags Bennet.”

“No.” Ava spreads her hands on the table, shoulders hunched as if she’s prepared to fly up and out of the room. “Walk away.”  
“I can’t, Ava.”  
“Of course you can, walk away.”  
He was anticipating an explosion and doesn’t really know how to counter the cold, matter of fact pronouncement her voice cuts into the space between them. Time to change gears then.  
“Ava,… this is just what I got for today’s work,” he takes out the cheque with the signing bonus and slides it towards her across the table, “it’ll already go a long way to solve a lot of our problems.”  
She picks it up reluctantly as if the paper was set to bite her, but when she looks at the number, her eyes widen almost imperceptibly before they flicker over to the drawer that contains all the bank letters. When she looks back, Boyd inclines his head towards it, letting her know he’s aware. Her hand tightens around the check, crinkling the paper and he sees need, pride and fear war on her face. 

“Do you have to give it back?”  
“Beg your pardon?”  
She waves the check in his face: “This. If you tell that Johnson woman where to shove it and walk. Do. You. Have. To Give. It Back?”  
“No. It’s the fee for today’s work and an incentive for my consideration to continue on the job. I’ll of course be compensated much more handsomely if I stay on, especially depending on how successful I am.”  
“No,” she slaps the cheque down in front of him and leans closer, “you take the money and we put it in the bank to get the mortgage right side up again and then you walk away.”  
He meets her eyes with equal intensity: “Ava, I can’t let this opportunity pass, it’ll set us up with all we need to…”  
“With all _you_ need, you mean. And it won’t get you far, if you have to go up against Mags Bennet.”  
“I will handle Mags.”  
Ava smacks her hands on the table and the chair scrapes back with a loud clatter as she stands up and leans over to get in his face:  
“She will bury you!”  
“She will _TRY_.”

The words echo one by one into the sudden chill descending on the kitchen, the shadows growing deeper, the lights growing brighter and only when he sees all the colour drain from Ava’s face, leaving behind sickly pallor and the thundering swiftness of her pulse, does he notice the additional weight of his fangs bared under his lips. His eyes are likely silver-bright entirely and he wouldn’t be surprised if his hair was standing on end even more so than usual, static crackling around his presence like an aura.  
He is _scaring_ Ava.  
With a gasp and a shudder, he works to rein himself in at once, make himself take up less room.  
“Ava, I’m sorry, I only mean to keep you…”  
She silences him with a raised hand and holds his gaze with a whiff of silent fury in her eyes, steel forged in fear, before turning away with a ragged breath. Then she steps over to the counter, tapping a cigarette from the pack, putting it between her lips and lighting it with her shaking hands cupped underneath it. With the first drag her shoulders relax minutely and on the exhale, she turns to lean against the wall, blowing the acrid smoke into the silent air.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Whirr. Swish. Crack. 

The sound of packed leather and hardwood travelling through the air towards each other, meeting savagely in their designated spot, echoes loud and solitary into the night air. Its dependable, meditative rhythm is the only thing Raylan has a mind to concentrate on right now, and the one way he could think of to mitigate the jittery tension that’s been wired into his body for more than three days now. 

Whirr. Swish. Crack. 

He imagines every ball whistling towards the chain-link fence at the back of the batting cage carrying another one of his troubles with it:  
Disturbing, entirely too lucid dreams about monsters and men, spilling over into his waking hours?

Whirr. Swish. Crack.

Gone. 

The question of whether said visitations are evidence of him slowly losing his mind, or a red flag from his subconscious, reminding him that his commitment issues are alive and well, despite – or maybe because of – him and Winona talking about settling down and kids and maybe trying for something more, something permanent, again?

Whirr. Swish. Crack.

The clean burn in his muscles blots out thoughts from his ruminating mind one by one.

Like the fact that he would commit a felony for Winona without a second thought, but he can’t picture them buying another house in Georgia, or actually _living_ in it and starting that family they talked about, even if he tries. 

Whirr. Swish. Crack.

The ball glances off the bat at a wrong angle and careens off into the net above, barely missing a hole to shoot off into the night sky.

There goes the way they’d been too damn lucky by half not to get caught in said felony, sneaking down into the evidence locker amongst the chaos trailing the fake bomb threat, to square away the money the _FBI_ was now actively looking for. Just ahead of the whole posse falling in to check for it, too. And while Tim and Rachel might have been just absorbed enough by the mystery surrounding the loot to miss how very shady Raylan and Winona looked, already being down there for no good reason, Art sure as hell hadn’t. 

Whirr. Swish. Crack. 

“You’re dropping your shoulder.”  
Raylan is grateful that he was already well into his swing when Art’s voice sounds behind him as if summoned by his thoughts. That way he has a second to spare for the shock, letting muscle memory and instinct carry him through, before he puts himself together and turns towards the Chief with a frown of righteous anger on his face, instead of a grimace of guilty conscience.  
“No, I ain’t.”  
Art holds his eyes flint hard for a long second, as if daring him to buckle under the pressure (or maybe giving him an opening to come clean?), but then he grins and rocks back on his heels.  
“You’re right, what do I know about baseball. Nothing.”

Raylan grabs the flask of Jim Beam from where it’s been sitting on his jacket, well aware it’ll read as a nervous gesture to Art, but unwilling to forgo the liquid courage, if his boss is really here to throw him out on his ass – like he should.  
“How did you even find me here?”  
Thwack, goes another ball into the mat hooked up to the fence between them, hitting it like a bizarre reverse tennis match.  
“I tracked your phone.”  
The answer gets his hackles up, all of Raylan’s hard fought calm eroding with every new swing he doesn’t get to take.  
“What?! Why?”  
“Cause you weren’t answering. And apart from the fact that I like to know my Marshalls are safely out ‘n about in light of the recent terrorist threat, the Marshall Service has been tasked with beefing up security for all parties involved. And I can’t give you your assignment if I can’t reach you.”

Raylan takes another swig, waiting for Art to continue, while the Chief regards him with his special brand of paternal disapproval in return, which always serves to rile him up. He feels uncomfortably and immaturely like a rebellious teenager, but can’t squash the impulse to snark back: “And?”  
Art watches him, _watches_ him, rather, reminding him once again that he didn’t get to be Chief Deputy US Marshall for the state of Kentucky for no reason. Raylan despises these kinds of waiting games when he’s on the other side of the table, though he has no qualms to use the technique effectively enough. Being subjected to it like a common suspect is torture. 

Thwack.  
Another ball hits between them and Art apparently decides to let it go – for now – and answers:  
“That VP from the mining company, Carol Johnson? She’s going to Harlan tomorrow for that town meeting about the Green Mountain Project and you are assigned as her detail.”  
“Art…”  
“I don’t wanna hear it, you are going to pick her up at her hotel at 8am tomorrow morning and provide security for her so long as she’s down yonder and until such time as her business there is concluded or the suspects are apprehended. We clear?”  
Thwack, goes the next ball into the mat as if to cap Art’s statement. And it might as well have, considering his tone brooks no argument. Raylan nods, tips back the rest of the whiskey and dares the Chief to say something about him being out drinking on his own time. 

The silence stretches out between them until Art glances over to the far side of the batting cage, where there’s only stillness and says: “Looks like the time is up.”  
Raylan doesn’t really know how to answer except with another nod, feeling all the same like he’s missing an opportunity. But he can’t turn Winona in, no matter how much it chafes at his own wounded sense of justice. Art seizes him up, then nods once to himself and turns to leave. 

Only when he’s heard the unmistakable rumble of the engine does Raylan permit himself to lean back against the chain-link fence, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and spitting out an emphatic: “FUCK.”  
The unease makes the alcohol churn like fire in his gut, all the serenity washed away. Art knows something went down with that missing money and that Raylan, and probably Winona too, was somehow involved. He might not have enough pieces of the puzzle together to figure it out completely, certainly not enough to prove anything. Which is naturally why he was waiting for Raylan to open up instead of accusing him outright. But the fact remains that this is going to drive another wedge in the already shaky confidence the Chief has in him, and Raylan has a gut feeling that he’s going to need all the leeway he can get with what’s coming towards him.  
Because Harlan County and Carol Johnson combined mean this without a doubt:  
Boyd Crowder. 

Their strange encounter in the courthouse has been on his mind more than anything else. And the more he thinks about it, the weirder, less decipherable, it gets. He feels like he’s missing something vital, but he can’t put a finger on it and it’s driving him nuts. What is clear as day though is… with Boyd at the other end of the equation; that spells exactly one more thing for sure: trouble. 

~*~*~

When the headlights swing into the drive, shining through the kitchen window unexpectedly, Boyd sits up straighter at once, but he takes his time following Reggie Ames outside. Emmeline tugs her cardigan tighter around her chest and he shoots her what he hopes is an encouraging smile before he excuses himself from the table, leaving the paperwork deliberately. It doesn’t take much to guess who might come calling this evening. He’s been making his rounds the past two days, so it’s kind of a surprise he hasn’t run into the Bennets before now. Time to take the temperature of that particular pot. 

When he steps outside, it’s just in time to hear Reggie ask: “What’s in the bag?” punctuated by a high-pitched squeal and a rattle out of the duffle bag that hangs from Coover Bennet’s meaty fingers. It smells so vile, it’s all Boyd can do not to cover his nose and dry-heave.  
“Well, Reggie, you sign on the dotted line for us concerning that piece of land we been talking about and you won’t have to find out what’s in the bag.”  
Boyd steps out of the shadows before Reggie needs to even think of an answer and greets the unkempt, lanky man in front of him: “Hello Dickie.”  
He hadn’t meant to sound particularly menacing just now, but he must have either underestimated the clout his reputation still carries or how his charisma has changed, because Dickie Bennet rocks back on his heels as if he’s suddenly facing a gale force wind.  
“Boyd Crowder, well I never…! What are you doing here?”  
“Much of the same as you are, I wager. Looking to facilitate a lucrative sale for the property Mr. Ames here is fortunate enough to own.”

Dickie looks at him gaping for a second, probably trying to parse all those big words Boyd took great pleasure in using, before he spits at Boyd’s feet and shakes his head.  
“Boyd Crowder. I never would have guessed you’d end up as a thug for the mining company. Talk about falling from grace.”  
If Boyd still were the not quite so young man who spent entirely too much time trying to win the approval of his larger-than-life father, that would probably sting somewhere deep in his psyche. But he is so much more mature now, reminded time and again of how boring these petty human squabbles are, so he just meets Dickie’s expectant expression with an infuriatingly neutral smile.  
“A man’s gotta make a living, Dickie, just like everyone else out there in this world.”  
The little man’s face clouds over with a thunderous expression. Meanwhile, Coover does nothing but twist his wrist, drawing another jiggle and shriek out of the poor creature he’s got trapped in that duffle. Boyd tilts his head a little and raises an eyebrow, regarding them silently, unimpressed by the display and wondering instead how such a formidably dangerous and cunning woman like Mags Bennet managed to raise such a pair of imbeciles for sons.  
Gotta work with what you get, presumably. 

“Well, you can run along now, Boyd, seeing as we got business for the family to settle here.”  
Boyd manages not to roll his eyes in response, just about. Trust Dickie to try once and then fall back on his mother’s clout, looking to draw it around him like a cloak of intimidation by proxy. Well, Boyd’s a Crowder, with the added benefit of two dozen lifetimes of experience now piecing themselves together in his head, which means that move sluices off him like so much water.  
“Dickie, I believe Mr Ames here is going to hear out our offer, same as yours and then decide for himself what the best course of action is. So, I think you’d better be the one that runs along, seeing as you don’t seem to have anything of substance to discuss.”  
Boyd barely puts any emphasis on the words, can’t even really call it a proper push, but all the same Dickie blanches and folds like a house of cards, taking an unsteady step back towards the car before Boyd has even finished talking.  
“Well, I can’t argue with you there, Boyd. Since we said what we came to say, we will take our leave now.” 

Coover shoots his brother a glance, accompanied by a moue of puzzled surprise, but he moves towards the passenger side all the same, clearly assuming that even if he doesn’t get it, little Dickie must have a plan. He looks at Boyd over the roof of the car with the kind of empty animalistic bloodlust that makes him want to bare his fangs in return, but the exchange catches Boyd’s attention for a different reason. Dickie is acting much like a thrall, a person who’s been pulled in by a vampire so often and so deeply that they obey even suggested orders without much resistance, and Boyd wonders for a moment whether there’s something about the Bennet clan he doesn’t know, which would be very worrying indeed. But then Dickie turns around with a one hand on the car door and a small wobble on his bad leg, throwing a look over his shoulder that holds a strange kind of underlying awareness of what Boyd just did to him and regards him with pure malice.  
“However, tomorrow morning, we will be back”, he says and flicks his eyes towards Reggie in turn, ”and your signature, we _will_ be expecting.”

With that, he slams the door shut and forcefully revs the engine, spraying gravel on his way down the drive in a way that is equal parts spiteful and impotent. And it’s what makes the penny drop in Boyd’s mind. There’s nothing preternatural about Mags Bennet – well, maybe she’s a hedge witch of some skill, considering how otherworldly her distilled apple pie tastes, but that’s neither here nor there. Her sons’ behaviour, however, is entirely predictable if one considers that they were raised with the absolute deference to her mother’s word as gospel in mind. So much so, that even if they wanted to, they wouldn’t have the strength of mind to rebel against the matriarch’s iron authority. It is how Mags solidified her position of unquestioned power in her family after her husband’s passing, but it also opened up a weak spot. Because something so ingrained cannot be switched off in the face of a different but equally strong authority. Especially for someone like Dickie, who fancies himself the erstwhile heir to his mother’s illicit businesses; frightfully overestimating his own ability. Boyd will have to keep that in mind. 

He is startled out of his musings, however, by Reggie Ames’ tense words: “I don’t know if I can go with you on this, Boyd. I have my girls to think about.”  
The tall black man is watching the tail lights disappear down the drive with a deep frown on his face and Boyd pulls his focus back with an effort, to concentrate on the task at hand.  
“Listen,” he grasps Reggie’s shoulder to lock eyes with him and puts just a little _push_ behind those next words: “I can provide protection for you and your family, you have my word. And you know I put a fair deal on the table for you to sign. Now, I don’t know what you been talking about with them before now, but I’m willing to bet the Bennets are not offering the same kind of money. Those boys, however, they will be back, and chances are, you’re gonna find out what’s in that bag.”  
Boyd squeezes Reggie’s shoulder one more time and lets go, even though the man still looks dubious. He isn’t worried. After all, he left all them papers on the kitchen table for Emmeline to peruse with an eagle eye five minutes ago.  
“I’ll be by tomorrow morning first thing, to hear your answer, alright? I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, we spent a lot of time with Raylan in this chapter, didn't we? I would do more of that, but he does a pretty good job of pushing me out of his head on a regular basis. But I promise, I'll work more on not letting him. 
> 
> Meanwhile, I have news for my cherished readers, I have taken up tumblr, both as venting against the machine when my creative powers do not obey, as well as a place for readers to go get progress updates and well, just also ask me shit about fandom stuff the way we can't really on AO3. So, if you'd like to follow me, go here [Mangacat201](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mangacat201) and say hi, I'd be delighted.


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